Seattle Parks Is Trying to Tell the Truth. Will I Survive the Shock?

Dear Diary,

I have a notion that being an inveterate liar is kind of like other moral failings, and so although lying has never been an important sin to me, I can figure out what it's like by analogy.  I think there are two ways to try to stop sinning in general, and so lying in particular.  One is the folk wisdom that a sinner has to "hit bottom", get to where confessing and giving up the sin is the only way forward.  But the other is to work on one's personality and one's reality until giving up the sin won't hurt so much.  In this particular case, until lying is no longer needed.  That path, which is if anything harder than hitting bottom and making other people responsible for dealing with it, is the path it seems to me the City of Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation has chosen.

I pointed out a number of ludicrous details in the department's new "dashboard" (a word I kind of wish had died of COVID-19 toward the end of the pandemic, but still, that's what it's called).  It said Cowen Park's restrooms, which had been damaged by early opening in March 2022 and hadn't re-opened since, were open.  It said Ravenna Park's lower pair of restrooms, which have been perennial targets of vandals, and where the men's room hadn't opened at all in 2022, were both open.  And to top this series of obvious whoppers off, it said University Playground's restrooms, which hadn't been opened by parks department employees at any time since before the pandemic started, were both open.

I recently learnt that I wasn't quite as poor as I thought I was, because my bank hadn't charged a fee I'd expected them to charge.  So today I splurged on a newspaper and went hiking, prepared to mock yet another parks department lying map afterward.

I found both of Cowen Park's restrooms open today.

I found all four of Ravenna Park's restrooms open today.

I didn't find either of University Playground's restrooms open today, but a small group of homeless people there told me that was because they'd been locked half an hour earlier.  Considering that it was 5:41 P.M. when I was told this, that's testimony to way too early closing, but still, sadly, believable.  Supporting this preposterous turn of events actually having happened, the restroom doors both had new handles (dear Diary, your readers can, if they wish, compare the handle shown here to those in previous photos via the tags at the bottom of the page, or directly here if reading on cell phones, which didn't offer those tags the last time I looked.)

Notice, dear Diary, that these handles are set into circular supports; the previous handles, which were blocky rather than delicate themselves, weren't set into anything like that.  I think the evidence is good that University Playground's restrooms have finally re-opened.

So the parks department has done the hard work to justify its claims regarding all the restrooms I visited today.  Including those at Burke-Gilman Playground Park.  Now, this is where Google Maps lied to me today; it claims the whole park is temporarily closed.  

 

But actually, well, let's see if I can do this:

(I was trying to just paste a print-screen from OpenStreetMap into the page.  No, I couldn't.  Darn.)  Only part of the park is closed, the northeastern part.  The parks department also tells the truth about this:

And someone carefully removed the sign adjacent to the Burke-Gilman Trail there pointing the way to the restrooms.

 

Yes, dear Diary, they're building new restrooms there.  I hope this time they're winter-proof, but I sure hope, if I become homeless again before winter and there's another pandemic, they finish quickly.

I remembered from long ago that the neatest thing I thought Burke-Gilman Playground Park had to offer was a play fortress thingy sort of at the northwestern corner of the northeastern part of the park.  So I looked in its direction from the street, but couldn't tell whether it'd been protected or not.  (I'm more pessimistic that the actually neater sundial, also mentioned in that page, could've stayed in situ and been safe, so I hope it was moved.)  The building all that landscape destruction is in aid of is still standing, but perhaps so far all they've had time to do is pull the plumbing out.  (In the photo I uploaded to Google Drive, at full size a viewer can see the holes where the water fountain was attached.)

Anyway, my point is, that this morning when I checked the dashboard again hoping they'd have stopped, as I thought, lying and I could do other stuff today, they showed a bunch of restrooms as closed due to "Capital Project"s, and this was one of them.

Their water fountain map is still way too optimistic, I suspect; it's now up to 5 off, 206 on.  I found three off today, but one isn't theirs; it's the one where University Methodist Temple used to be, the stone edifice of the water fountain (not the church) still standing, but with no plumbing left inside.  I've reported the "lower" Ravenna Park fountain using "Find It - Fix It", which is how they say they want updates to those maps.  I haven't reported yet the weird stone water fountain pretty far southwest in Laurelhurst Playfield.  I guess I'll see what happens to the water fountain map tomorrow, when I plan to hide from the rain, having already lost my umbrella this year.

The Seattle Times, whose weather forecaster likes to go to extremes, is currently predicting lows for the weekend of 33º Friday night, 32º Saturday night, and 34º Sunday night.  Usually the parks department has been able to shrug off October freezes, but if the Times's extremism comes true (as it does depressingly often), that may be a too long-lasting example for the same reaction.   No official word yet, but my point, dear Diary, is that as usual, I've left it too late to get every park visited before it all changes.  The questions is whether it matters.  Is the parks department really turning over a new leaf?  Will it, for example, admit what's happening when it closes the majority of its restrooms for the winter?  Or is this just another episode in a longer battle?

One reason I've been paying so much attention to libraries lately, dear Diary, is to have another string to your bow as well as my own.  I think the last thing I expected was to have the parks department remove your raison d'être, but if it happens, it happens.  I will admit, I found myself getting both reminiscent and bored today as I took all these photos; I really didn't want, in particular, to get the only newspaper I can probably afford soon wet by photographing water fountains.  (And Jenny Durkan is no longer in office, so need I really worry about another Durkan Drought?  Well, only if there's another pandemic...)

Anyway, photos other than the above (most of those above are actually not at these links):

Cowen Park

Ravenna Park

Burke-Gilman Trail, 30th Ave fountain

Burke-Gilman Playground Park (including none of the photos above, only the photo that sort of shows where the water fountain was)

Laurelhurst Community Center (restrooms) and Playfield (water fountains)

Burke-Gilman Trail, 47th St fountain

Former University Methodist Church, former street fountain

Christie Park

University Playground (including the photo above)

Time marches on, dear Diary; there's a reason I ditched "months" in the titles of the library pages.  I'm working on three fronts:

For part VI of public library hours, I've finished work on Wahkiakum County and started on revising the actual page and on San Juan County.  Cowlitz County, however, is nearly three times as big a job as those two put together, and Skagit County nearly four times.  So we'll see.

For part II of institutional libraries, I now have my list and just need to get through it; as I said in part I, it's a long list.

And I'm also dipping my toes into part I of academic libraries.

Whatever, though, you should hear from me again reasonably soon, dear Diary.  Happy nights and days until then.

Today's Hike: Many water fountains turned on in areas around the University

Dear Diary,

I have very little time left to tell you much about today's hike, so will summarise.

I went to Christie Park, University Playground, Cowen Park, Ravenna Park, the Burke-Gilman Trail (specifically, its eastern water fountain), Burke-Gilman Playground Park, and Laurelhurst Playfield and Community Center.  Also University Heights Plaza, which still has "sanican"s and an SPU sink, and Ravenna Boulevard, which still has no plumbing.

Restrooms - All open except, still, Cowen Park and University Playground.

Water fountains - All running except, still, Christie Park.  The double water fountain in the northeast of Laurelhurst Playfield is probably un-useable, however:  the lower bowl gives so little water I doubt it can be drunk, let alone fill a bottle, while the upper one overshoots its bowl so spectacularly, the same doubts hold.  The single water fountain in the same playfield's southwest was much cooler than the last time I tried it, last year, so evidently is just affected by the temperature in general, rather than specifically heated.

I found that I do still, after months of filtered tap water, like the water from Burke-Gilman Playground Park's water fountain.

I then went to another suburban library for another Korean drama (which I'd actually hoped to get from the first one last week), and found the water fountains still shut off, but the men's room was fine.

On returning downtown I looked for three of the street fountains listed on the pseudo-map that I hadn't known about.

The one at 298 James St, actually a little north of James on the west side of 3rd Ave, is running despite both kinds of damage I'd found in other running fountains:  its control-and-spout mechanism is wobbly, as at 5th & Olive Way, and its push button is uncapped, as at 1st & Pike.

I couldn't find one within a block of 200 Columbia St.

I did find one at 898 3rd Ave, that is, on the east side of 3rd Ave just south of Marion, but from the ingrained dirt in the bowl, I doubt it's run any time this past year, and it certainly wasn't running tonight.

The fountains at 2nd & Madison and at 3rd & Union were running, but I found I liked the taste of neither.

So things are looking up in North Seattle, but Seattle Public Utilities lied at least a little.  I'll take what I can get.  Good night, dear Diary.

Details of southern NE Seattle, part I

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I really didn't want to go hiking, so I decided to start with the toughest job left:

Magnuson Community Center and Park

As you already know, I found two restroom pairs open, the usual two closed, and, also as usual, no water fountains running.  The central men's room has two toilets without stall doors, two urinals, one sink, one dryer, and one soap dispenser.  The beach men's room has two toilets without stall doors, two urinals, one sink, one dryer that I haven't found working since last May, and one soap dispenser.  Anyway, there were also other things worth telling you about.

Near the entrance this sign currently stands:

Now, way back in October, in "Water Fountains - An Interim Report", part II, I wrote as follows about the joys of approaching Magnuson Park:

| Of course there were also tears and the gnashing of teeth 

| along this route - not on 75th, and not in the neighbourhood 

| of switchbacks between 75th and Sand Point Way, but rather 

| in the epic struggle to walk the three blocks from 77th to 74th 

| Sts along Sand Point, a part of it not designed for the human form.

So never let it be said that the current city administration has done nothing for me.

The Cross Park Trail (officially the South Cross Park Trail, but since the North one doesn't cross nearly as much of the park, I don't care) reaches the lakefront path halfway between the beach restrooms and the "tower" ones.  I turned south towards the "tower" first.  Along the way I spotted a sign on a tree.  I like it when parks make it possible to identify plants - we'll see an example on a much bigger scale later - so I stopped to look at the sign:

What Green Seattle Partnership aren't telling you in this sign is that because this tree isn't native to Washington, they'd just love to have the chance to uproot it.  That's why they make an issue about its being native here at all; they just can't help themselves, even when they're trying to be politic and not tell people that the tree providing those people with shade ought not to be there.

Anyway, speaking of uprooting, I think something's changed at the "tower" since I first visited it, although I'm not sure just when.  The change is that the water fountain there is now considered a risky thing to approach:

I was going to say that it had never hurt me, but actually, when I first visited this fountain last May, I vaguely remember that the controls then existing, as opposed to now, actually sort of bit my thumb.  So I suppose this caution is warranted.

I put an extra photo into the Google Drive folder where I keep all the boring shots showing me trying to get water from water fountains and observing open (or, on this trip, closed) restroom doors.  Let me repeat it here:

That's one of the two shower controls for Magnuson Park's beach showers.  Notice that it can't be turned.  Neither can.  Now, this could be vandalism, even metal thievery, but I've been coming to believe that this kind of controls-disabling is actually done by employees of the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, and this is a case in point.  Why would metal thieves have stopped where they did?

The Magnuson Community Center is under construction:

and could thus be excused if it were ignoring the idea of "re-opening" as much as other Community Centers are.  But actually, when I went to its temporary home at the Brig (west entrance), this is what I found:

Much better than when I looked for it in January and couldn't find it.

Burke-Gilman Playground Park

Its water fountain, whose water I really like, is off.  Its restrooms are open.  The men's room has one toilet with a door that doesn't latch or lock, one urinal, two sinks, one dryer, and one soap dispenser.  The bench I liked still has not been repaired.

The Burke-Gilman Trail

It's been a long time since I showed you a video, dear Diary, so I thought I'd show you this one, although it's very short.  Its point is that the Burke-Gilman Trail's eastern water fountain, one of only two park water fountains running in southern "NE", is not in ideal shape.

It's dripping both at the control and from the opposite side of the fountain.

In order to make sure I actually got going, I left the house without taking time to pack food or water (though I did drink some before leaving).  To make matters worse, I got a bag of tortilla chips for breakfast, where I got the newspaper.  So I was pretty thirsty by this point, and, ignoring the damage, washed and filled both the empty bottles I was carrying there.  The water proved good, as it has been in the past.

Speaking of the past, this fountain is part of why I'm suspicious of controls vandalism.  Last winter the controls were visibly damaged, but when the fountains came back on the controls of this one were magically healed.

Since I had water, I didn't need to get it from University Village, and so was free to get my day's healthy food at Safeway.  But I didn't like what they had available, so went to Chipotle in U-Village anyway.

Ravenna Park

Neither men's room is open, only the lower women's room is open, and neither water fountain is running.

I took, and uploaded to Google Drive, two photos of the upper women's room door, one a close-up trying to show the latch that locks it.  I remember doing the same with the men's room but the photo doesn't seem to have taken.

The lower men's room door bears a sign blaming the closure on vandalism.  Both upper rooms' doors bear signs blaming the closure on all four choices:  seasonal closure, vandalism, malfunction or freeze, and maintenance needed.

Near the lower restrooms is a sandbox that constantly spills sand onto the pavement nearby.  A man was sweeping the sand away, blessed be he, and when he saw me taking pictures he introduced himself and explained, with rather slow speech, his job, involving programs at this park.  Someone better equipped than I should try to get this guy the fifteen minutes of fame he seems to want.

On my way between the lower and upper restrooms and water fountains, I stopped at a Little Free Library.  While I looked, a parks employee drove up and hailed me; it was the man I'd met at Northacres Park.  He'd regaled me with tales of closed restrooms then (one involved an unhappy rabbit in the women's beach restroom at Magnuson); this time, he just listed them to me.

Nevertheless, I took a big risk and ate my burrito and drank a bottle of water near the picnic shelter near the upper restrooms, not knowing where I could take care of the probable results.

Cowen Park

Neither restroom was open.  This time only the "malfunction or freeze" box was checked.  You may remember, dear Diary, that in "Some Odds and Ends" I mentioned having seen the men's room here open on March 23, with the water running.  Since UW, nearby, recorded 36° F on the Atmospheric Sciences Building rooftop as recently as April 11, a freeze wouldn't be much of a wonder.

The water fountain also isn't running.

University Heights Plaza

As I told you, dear Diary, I'd worried about the SPU sinks.  Well, in the U-District, they're still there:

Here's a close-up of their new decoration:

On my way to the next park, I stopped by the University branch of the Seattle Public Library.  It thinks there's plenty of time left before it has to worry about anything like "re-opening":

University Playground

This park was recently swept.  So, as at Albert Davis Park, this was the first time I could shoot a landscape at this park without catching a tent, so I did that, even though the landscape of this park is singularly uninteresting:

The restrooms remain closed without explanation.  I've heard two explanations of very different kinds from the two parks employees with whom I've talked the most (one, the guy mentioned above), so I don't know what to think.

On the way to the next park, I verified that the SPU sink is still at the encampment at I-5 and NE 45th St.  Remembering that I hadn't actually tried the one at U-Heights, I decided to photograph this one running:

And there I'd better stop, because I have more photos to show you, dear Diary, and this is sort of a natural stopping point.  Until later today, then.

Hike 11B: Near Northeast, part II

Dear Diary,

After all the surprises of the previous page, this one is smooth sailing.  I visited three parks with four restroom buildings and one community center, but no "sanican"s, took thirteen pictures, and got no stories to tell you.  All the restrooms were open or closed as the map I was checking said they should be.

Ravenna Park

Ravenna Park, as one of the bigger parks in North Seattle, has two pairs of restrooms.  They're usually referred to as "upper" and "lower", and although Ravenna Park was probably the most familiar to me of the North Seattle parks when I started to write you, I was quite wrong to think the whole park could be understood as "upper" or "lower"; but that will have to wait.  So take the older of these pages of yourself with a grain of salt, dear Diary:  "Hypotheses", last April 23; "Our Main Characters", last April 25; "I Level Up, Wielding 'Sanicans'", April 26, "FOUND:  Park Drinking Water NEAR UW!!", April 26; "The Curious Incident of the Light in the Night-Time", May 2; "Go North, Aging Man!" and "Foolish Mortal", May 6; "Ravennawards", May 12; "Two Hours and Two Hours", June 3; "Home Dry Home", June 4; "Amazing Water Fountain News", July 30; "My Book of Hours", part II, August 30; "A Problem", November 12; and "Standing Room Only", part II, November 23.

The "upper" restroom building's best face:

Since this is the one that actually is closed in winter, I assume it's also the one in the list I quoted a few pages back that's supposed to be closed in winter.  It still isn't shown as open on the map as of today.  The closed doors January 22:

The "lower" restroom building's best face:

This one has heat, and was open (with exceptions, as witness the rather embarrassing page "Mysteries" of February 1) this past winter:

Laurelhurst Community Center

A try for a postcard shot:

 The closed doors to the inside:

Because of those closed doors, dear Diary, I haven't told you much about Laurelhurst Community Center, but rather more about Laurelhurst Playfield, which is where the community center is:  "Our Main Characters", last April 25; "Laurelhurst Playfield", May 2; "Go North, Aging Man!", May 6; "Home Dry Home", June 4; "This and That", June 20; "Amazing Water Fountain News", July 30; "My Book of Hours", part I, August 7, and part III, August 30, and then, yet again, oops.

The open outside-facing doors:

Burke-Gilman Playground Park

This is a much less important park in North Seattle than Ravenna Park, except to its neighbours, to drivers along Sand Point who rely on its restrooms when they're open, and to me because it was closer to where I slept than any restrooms except Laurelhurst's, which are on top of a very steep hill, and because I really liked its water fountain's water.  So I've talked about it to you, dear Diary, quite a bit:  "Magnuson Park Has a Warm-Water Sink!" last April 22; "Hypotheses", last April 23; "Our Main Characters", last April 25; "I Level Up, Wielding 'Sanicans'", April 26; "FOUND:  Park Drinking Water NEAR UW!!", April 27; "We're All in This Together", April 28; "The Curious Incident of the Light in the Night-Time", May 2; "Metropolitan Market or, Reliability", May 4; "Home Dry Home", June 4; "This Is Getting Old", July 2; "Momentous News", July 17; "My Book of Hours", part I, August 7, and oops.  The "Momentous News" was that the park's water fountain had been shut off.  I figured it was because I'd made it known that the thing was running.  I started getting water from University Village, which had also re-opened its restrooms by then, oh, and someone vandalised the bench I preferred to sit on, so BGPP stopped being all that important to me pretty quickly.

Anyway, though, the restroom building's best face is unfortunately the one they keep putting fairly unimpressive murals onto to advertise some sort of social media campaign for park improvements.  (I think.)  Here:

The closed doors:

And that leaves one park to go, Matthews Beach.  But I have a whole lot to tell you in that park's page, dear Diary, so don't know whether I can still get it written tonight.  If not, good night, and you'll see it tomorrow.

Water Fountains - an Interim Report, Part III

 Dear Diary,

You probably remember that the last two pages I wrote in you concerned two trips to many water fountains that found a geographical pattern in their status as on or not.  This page concerns two more trips.

September 30

On this day I showered, changed clothes, and got my mail.  These errands put me close to Cal Anderson Park and to some previously mentioned street water fountains.  The addresses below lack direction markers and are not in "NE".

Freestanding street water fountain in front of the Bartell Drugs store at 5th Ave and Westlake Ave - UNUSABLY DAMAGED (as I first reported May 1 in "Water Fountains:  Things We've Lost, Part II")

Freestanding street water fountain on 4th Ave in front of Freeway Park, between Pine and Pike Streets - NOT RUNNING (same first report)

(The person whose legs are in the shot was with me that day and gave permission.)

Freestanding street water fountain on 3rd Ave just south of Union St, in front of the downtown Post Office - NOT RUNNING (same first report)

Freestanding street water fountain at 1st Ave and Pike St, across the street from a main entrance to Pike Place Market - UNUSABLY DAMAGED (as I first reported June 18 in "Ways to Fight Water Addiction")

Cal Anderson Park

I actually didn't bother to check the fancy, huge, winterised new fountain in the park.  It's just that I'd forgotten this park has two drinking fountains - the other is reachable only across gravel, which I disliked walking on long before I had a cart to worry about.

Freestanding water fountain near the water tower - ON (my first report this year)

This means I've been worrying sort of needlessly about water on Capitol Hill - no, I don't think the fountains known to me in Volunteer Park are enough, and the library is open too few hours.  However, this fountain will be shut off sometime next month, whereas the formerly running street fountain in front of Rite Aid, and Cal Anderson Park's own new main fountain, would both have run most or all of the coming months.

October 1

A hike from Burke-Gilman Playground ending at the UW campus, phone charged along the way, begun in morning but extremely lazily conducted and not finished until night.  Covered the five last fountains visited September 17 (Part I) but not re-visited September 28 (Part II) plus three more.

Burke-Gilman Playground Park - ON

Street fountain on Burke-Gilman Trail at 30th Ave - ON

I said a while ago that I liked to photograph this fountain, but it had been some time since I did so.  Here are two:

Ravenna Park - both fountains ON but the double "lower" one difficult to drink from, as on September 17.

Cowen Park - ON

Freestanding street fountain on 15th Ave a bit nearer 43rd than 42nd Streets - ON AND USABLY DAMAGED (good water; first reported on May 1 in "The Curious Incident of the Light in the Night-Time", but I'm not sure when I first noticed its missing drain)

Christie Park

For more on this now reopened park, see the page after next, today or tomorrow.

Freestanding double water fountain near the ping-pong table - ON (both faucets giving reasonable streams)

University Playground

Freestanding water fountain near the women's room - UNUSABLY DAMAGED

I first reported this off April 25 in "Our Major Characters".  The October 1 hike is the first time I heard water move in response to my pushing the tap, but none came out.  I don't know whether the damage visible below is vandalism or a plumber's effort to find the problem.

My Book of Hours, part I: July 17 to 21

 Dear Diary,

Hello again!  I'm sorry it's been so long, but I'd tackled a long project which I only recently finished, after which I really needed some downtime.  So now at last I can report on it.

The short version:  Park restrooms are indeed on their non-"peak" schedule.

The long version:

I went to each local park pair of restrooms that was open during the project - Burke-Gilman Playground Park's, Laurelhurst Community Center's, the upper and lower pairs in Ravenna Park, and finally Cowen Park's.  I observed five restroom openings or closings at each, except six at Cowen Park.  Because I could rarely see both doors at once, and because I didn't want to have to decide whether a restroom had been opened when it was unlocked or when the staffer left it, I recorded times based on what I saw.

Each of the 26 occasions had these features:  A man (I saw no women) drove up in a white Seattle Parks and Recreation pickup truck, along a path vehicles don't normally take, parked in a place vehicles don't normally park, but close to the restrooms, got out and locked or unlocked them, did whatever else they might do, then got back into the trucks and drove away.

So although I sometimes recorded other events, including lockings or unlockings, I focused on the time the pickup's engine stopped, and especially the time it started again.

I took notes of times, and took a video at upper Ravenna and photos at lower Ravenna and especially Cowen Parks, but I remember the least from the first park I did, Burke-Gilman, partly because it's the only one I didn't spend even one whole day at.  (There isn't much shade near those restrooms.)

July 17

At Burke-Gilman Playground Park I usually got a spot adjacent to the men's room, from which I couldn't see the women's room at all.  The parking was usually adjacent to, but not in, a parking lot. The opening was from 7:50 to 7:53 A.M., meaning the truck engine stopped at 7:50 and restarted at 7:53.  I missed the closing, which was completed by 7:09 P.M.

July 18

Same park.   Opening 6:31 to 6:33 A.M.  Closing  ~5:20 P.M. arrival, 6:06 locking (yes, both rooms), 6:07 departure.  (The driver cleaned the restrooms and did other things in between.  This driver had parked further from the restrooms and my spot.)

July 19

Same park.  Opening 7:32 to 7:35 A.M.  Closing - I missed the arrival (I was finishing a book, and not in my usual spot) but know it was after 7:00 P.M.; locking 7:14, departure 7:15.

July 20

Laurelhurst Community Center and Playfield.  The restrooms are in the former, but I observed from a bench in the latter, the one closest to the restrooms, facing the tennis courts.  A parking lot is not far from the usual pickup parking place, but also not as close as at BGPP.  I stayed at the park the whole two days, since it's so hard to reach, and when the bench had too much sun to read on my phone, watched the tennis players, and to a lesser extent the tennis.  Opening (by the gentleman I'd met at Northacres Park) 7:49 to 7:52 A.M.  Closing 6:40 to 6:49 P.M., delayed by the employee's interactions with me (I told him about a problem; he fixed it; he gave me some food); locking was at 6:45.

July 21

Same park.  Opening 6:36 to 6:41 A.M. (unlocking ~6:37; employee then used one of the restrooms).  Closing 7:19 to 7:20 P.M.

Momentous News

Dear Diary,

Burke-Gilman Playground Park's water fountain HAS STOPPED RUNNING.

The reason this is important is that it's the first time I've observed a water fountain in North Seattle change states this year.  I've seen the restrooms at Little Brook and upper Ravenna Parks open, and those at lower Ravenna Park and BGPP close unpredictably, but up to now water fountains had been unchanging.  The exceptions, in my experience of this year, are all south of the canal - Roanoke and Cal Anderson Parks' fountains have started, and the Capitol Hill street fountain stopped, in my observations.

So this is bad news for me in the short term - I think BGPP's water tastes a bit better than University Village's - and if the fountain stays shut off, probably for the duration.  But as evidence that the Department of Parks and Recreation hasn't forgotten that it has water fountains in North Seattle, and even remembers how to control their flow, it's wonderful news for the far-off day when they get turned back on.

This Is Getting Old

Dear Diary,

Soon, I have to go south.  My clean clothing, including my untorn pants, is in my storage unit, and I need to change; but much more specifically, I'm out of clean masks, so need to do laundry after I change.  Since my storage unit closes at 6 P.M., this demands a fairly tight schedule.

So it was unhelpful today to find this:

at Burke-Gilman Playground Park.  Those photos were taken at 8:55 A.M.  The doors still weren't open when I called the parks department for the second time today at 9:17.  I left soon after.

The first time I called the department today, at 8:57, when I asked to be transferred to the maintenance line, the voice mail system gleefully hung up on me.  The other two times, 9:17 and also 12:02 P.M., I was indeed connected to the maintenance voice mail system, which each time tried and failed to find a dispatcher, then offered me the chance to leave a voice mail, which would be answered the next business day.

Well, it must demand a lot of personnel to close Cal Anderson Park, especially while the voice mail system's self-introduction continues to insist that "All parks are open".  And it's not as though I'd been calling every time I found BGPP's restrooms locked.  I've figured it's OK to call about parks I'll never see again, Northacres or Salmon Bay, but closed local restrooms are your whole point, dear Diary, and I shouldn't encourage the department, by calling every week, to take special care of my preferred parks and distort my field of view.

So it was my hubris, in thinking I could pick the day I'd shower and change clothes, that caused the problem, and if I just accept that such decisions are better left to the gods of the parks, doubtless things will improve.  And improve they must, if, as seems increasingly likely, I remain stuck in this way of life until a vaccine is widely in use.

My next planned page in you, dear Diary, needs to be up to date, so demands either a bus journey or a rather long hike.  I may shuffle the order, or you may not hear from me until I get permission to smell better.

Home Dry Home

Dear Diary,

Today I finished visiting the nearby parks with water fountains.  For some I had more specific goals, but in general I wanted to get up to date on their water fountains and, where applicable, their restrooms, and also wanted to take some pictures.

The only change since the last time I did this is one I've taken for granted, in writing in you, for weeks, dear Diary.  This is that the restrooms in upper Ravenna Park have gone from usually locked, sometimes open 24 hours, to normal park restrooms, open reasonably early, closed far too early.  Otherwise, the three remaining locked restrooms (in Cowen and Magnuson Parks and in University Playground) remain locked, all the rest are open, and hardly any water fountains are running.

The first day, I got up and went, as usual,to

Burke-Gilman Playground Park

This is a smallish park (7 acres) which is nevertheless in three parts.  The one I've focused on has the restrooms (open) and water fountain (running; my main water source for the past two months) as well as a playground and the "neat stuff" I've posted pictures of already.  This time I wanted to replace the "door shots" that early in you, dear Diary, provided evidence of restrooms open or closed, with shots meant to document how much privacy the men's rooms' users could expect.  BGPP is by this standard mediocre:  the only toilet stall has a heavy door which stays closed when pulled to, but can't be latched, let alone locked; there's no sign the existing door ever had such features.

The men's room also is still out of soap; it's now been over a week.

I also wanted to flip my previous standard for "neat stuff", that it be near the restrooms.  So I looked for "neat stuff" elsewhere, and in BGPP that means the other two parts.  This park has a ravine:

which is actually where I first looked for the restrooms, even though its trail is gravel.  So this park also taught me what I wrote a while ago, that parks normally don't try to hide their plumbing.

After breakfast, I travelled on

The Burke-Gilman Trail

I normally don't mention this, but it is in fact technically a Seattle park, and as I mentioned some time ago, it does have a (badly damaged) water fountain that I've photographed several times already.  Here's yet another:

Someone has tried to console the thirsty with candy.

I usually turn shortly after this fountain to go to Safeway (yes, the one that was attacked two days ago, though I didn't know that then).  From there I took 45th to

Laurelhurst Community Center and Playfield

This park is twice the size of BGPP and much more sports-oriented.  The restrooms are built into the community center, but open to the outside; they have many little features more typical of building than of field restrooms, of which the most important by far is that the sinks give hot water.  The two rooms are single-user and all-gender.  They have two visible locking mechanisms.  The one that looks like a deadbolt does nothing; I don't know whether the one included in the latch works, or whether these doors latch but don't lock.

The three water fountains are near the tennis courts and behind the two baseball diamonds.  I've yet to find any of them running.

At the far end of the park from the restrooms is a bridge, whose whole purpose, I suspect, is to allow kids from Laurelhurst Elementary to reach the park without crossing a street:

After eating lunch and (ah, luxury) washing my deli container, I took that bridge to 47th Ave, and that north to Sand Point Way, which I left at 65th for

Magnuson Park

This is one of Seattle's largest parks, though the effect is a little vitiated by its northwestern part being heavily built up.  It has three existing pairs of restrooms, a derelict building that used to host another pair, and three spots where an old map claims restrooms once were.  Here I failed to find "neat stuff" far from the restrooms.  I thought of Promontory Point, but it's actually pretty dull, except for its views of Lake Washington:

which of course also exists close to the "beach" restrooms.

North along the shore from the Point, the derelict restroom building's leak has been stopped.  The water thus saved has not been put into any of the park's four water fountains known to me.

Further north are the beach restrooms.  The stalls in these (I ventured to glance into the women's room) look like they had doors, which have been removed.  The dryer in the men's room still doesn't work.

My other failure to find "neat stuff" far from these restrooms is "Fin Art", a sculpture field (by John T. Young) mainly north of them, but reaching far enough south to be seen from them:

Going west on the Cross Park Trail, we get to the central restrooms.  I see no evidence that the stalls in the men's room here ever had doors:

Further west, near the entrance, is another set, still locked:

I recently compiled a list of North Seattle community centers, and was surprised to have ignored one in Magnuson Park.  It turns out to have been the building those restrooms are in, "The Brig", so although I didn't know it was officially a community center, I'd already followed my usual procedure, circling it looking for signs of pandemic life, and as usual not finding any.

After some fiddling around, I managed to escape Magnuson Park at 70th St to enter the View Ridge neighbourhood.  This turned out to be a mistake;  that ridge is all too real, and there were several scarily steep blocks.  But eventually, on the ridge's gentler western downslope, I reached

View Ridge Playfield

EXTENSIVELY EDITED; I'D FORGOTTEN THE RESTROOMS

This is one of three parks I added to this trip so as to make eventually updating the parks further north easier.  Of these three, only this one has restrooms; none have functioning water fountains.  They aren't core parks for me as the nearer ones are (and Magnuson, because it's the nearest big park to me).  But I didn't want to single them out to get no photos.  So I decided to take one photo of each, from beside its water fountain.  View Ridge Playfield suffers from this because its main water fountain has been removed "to not spread germs", according to women I asked about it, and the one that's left is behind the edge of a baseball diamond's fence:

Because I find the explanation I've heard for the water fountain's removal disturbing, I'm biased against this park.  This seems to have led me, on this trip, to forget that it has restrooms.  This is doubly embarrassing because on June 6 (the day of the edits), I was informed by a parks employee that VIEW RIDGE PLAYFIELD'S RESTROOMS ARE NOW OPEN 24 HOURS.  Given that, it seems a safe bet that they were open the day I forgot them (June 2).

From there I took 45th Ave to 65th St, then 65th to

Bryant Neighborhood Playground

A little (3 acres) and largely vertical park.  It was a little difficult to find an angle that didn't include people here:

Further along 45th, I eventually reached

Ravenna-Eckstein Park

Another 3-acre park, built around another community center.  This one's only sign of life is that it may be providing free newspapers to the neighbourhood.  The water fountain is behind the building.

I've already told the story of how finishing in one day went down in flames when Ravenna Park's restrooms proved to have closed early.  So the next day (June 3) I got up and took Sand Point Way to 

Burke-Gilman Playground Park

The third part of this park is sort of a mini-park, all grass and basketball court, that you can see from the Burke-Gilman Trail, on which are these two sculptures by Anna MacDonald:

The words on the first are "Not Yet", the second "Already".

The Burke-Gilman Trail

This time I shot from beside the fountain:

Surprise!  Yes, it is possible to get bored with green.

I take a fairly complicated route to lower

Ravenna Park

This, at fifty acres, is easily the biggest of these except for Magnuson Park.  It comes in three parts:  the lower, which features lots of complicated detail elements from which most of the "neat stuff" I've already photographed have come; the upper, which is on a rather larger scale; and the ravine, photos of which are in the last part of the page titled "Ravennawards".  Both the lower and the upper parts have restrooms that are now normally open by day, and the upper has a working water fountain, with rather hard water.  Both men's rooms have doors that latch and lock:

Also, I was mistaken when I said some time ago that the upper restrooms had no dryers.  Turns out these, which I'd thought maybe controlled since-removed showers,  are old-fashioned but working dryers:

Obviously this time I had to get "neat stuff" from the upper park, and here are two bits.  One is an actual sink in a picnic shelter.  Unfortunately it isn't on, perhaps because picnics aren't currently allowed, perhaps because it isn't sink season?

The other is a century-old bridge, for 20th Ave over Ravenna Creek, that's on the National Register of Historic Places:

Whew.  Across that bridge and on via 62nd St and 15th Ave to

Cowen Park

I've complained already about this park's gravel and stairs, and grudgingly admitted a couple of things would have been neat if they'd been in "a more reasonable park".  Here's an example far from the restrooms:

You probably can't tell, but this notice board balances better than most park notice boards the demands of the present - to the right, which I apparently failed to include (the sun's angle made this shot hard), are three 2020 notices - with the weird insistence park notice boards have on preserving past ephemera - here including at least one sign from 2012.  If it could be reached on pavement, it'd be pretty neat.

Cowen Park also has one thing I have to admit is cool enough to be neat even where it is.  This is a sort of low-risk thrill-ride version of a swing.  It doesn't photograph well, unfortunately, but I tried it today and found it scary fun.

Cowen Park's restrooms remain locked.  I don't remember their having the discernibly latchable and lockable stall doors they have now, but we've already established (at the start of "Ravennawards") that my memory for restroom doors is unreliable.

I noticed, this time, evidence of a ventilation system in the building, further mystifying me as to why Cowen Park's restrooms are seasonal.

On by a complicated route (these two parks are linked as near each other and both with closed restrooms, but they're actually pretty far apart for "near") to

University Playground

Here, again, the restrooms remain locked, not that my photo can prove that:

And the water fountain remains shut off.  As at Albert Davis Park in Lake City, the homeless people camping here have put some space between themselves.  (I haven't been ignoring encampments in the other parks in this post; I haven't noticed any.)  That said, while this park is over twice as big as Albert Davis Park, it is, at less than three acres, the smallest so far in this page, and I really don't know of any "neat stuff" I haven't already pointed out.  So let me instead correct mistakes I then made.  I should have named Richard Beyer as the sculptor of this:

and should also have noted that the artist intended it as Sasquatch, not a troll (though to my eye he actually made a troll). To my surprise, this sculpture has its own Wikipedia article.

Finally, straight down 8th Ave to 

Christie Park

This small park recently doubled in size, which prompted a complete revision.  Apparently the old park had basketball and a water fountain, or at least that's how I now interpret the parks department's web page on the park.  The new park, according to two men I found working there today, will not include a water fountain.  I'm very impressed by how much progress the work has made since my last visit, not so long ago; the park will probably open before, dear Diary, I finish writing you.