I trust I don't have to repeat the map from your last page? (Hint to your readers: Even when those readers are as few as y'all currently are, I can't really figure out whether anything I do is helpful or harmful unless y'all say something.) This page is my discussion and photos of the last two parks I visited very close to Northgate Mall, and of the other, somewhat farther from the mall, half of a park whose very-close half I just described in that previous page.
Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel
Behind this stultifying name hides a charming, though peculiar, little park. One of its peculiarities, as in most Seattle Public Utilities parks, is signboards informing the viewer of many aspects of the ideal handling of water. But these signboards can also include more immediately useful things, such as maps of the park:
and of the Thornton Creek watershed of which it's a part:
I forget whether it was the balloons on the first map or on something I didn't photograph that told me where the entrance to the northeastern half of Beaver Pond Natural Area is, but the second map is what convinced me to try again with Victory Creek Confluence Natural Area.
The creek enters this park through an artificial waterfall:
and then passes under two bridges:
Between the bridges there are plenty of (metal) benches, and a few concrete benches in the middle, on the main side, plus there's a path on the other side, mainly, I think, so residents of buildings on that side can take stairways down to the park; but there's also a staff entrance to the creek valley, which the paths and bridges for the public don't provide access to, for, um, obvious reasons; and the other side has two benches.
I think this photo was just random:
I also took photos of the art, which is unified enough to be obviously the work of one person. That person's name, according to a report on the park's 2009 completion (PDF), is Benson Shaw, which sounded familiar, but Google doesn't know of my having named him before. Anyway, some of the art:
All in all, it's a rather nice place to spend some time, and can no doubt be educational too, if one allows it to.
Maple Leaf Community Garden
This is one of two P-Patches in North Seattle owned by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation rather than by the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. I've speculated on reasons why the parks department owns each; in this case, I suspect it's because of the gorgeous old tower there. And I've told you that before, dear Diary, and even shown you photos of that tower, so I'll only add one more this time:
and note that this is another P-Patch with difficulties for the vertically challenged, but close with a more typical P-Patch picture:
Beaver Pond Natural Area, round 2
As I just said, a sign at the Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel mentioned a possible access point to this park's northeastern block, so I decided to try again, assuming I'd ever tried much the first time, which isn't clear from either my memory or your pages, dear Diary.
Actually, my memory is also having trouble with the map this time. My best guess is that I tried the dead end of 9th Ave NE into this block's southern side first, but got nothing. Then I certainly went up 8th Ave NE toward the putative entrance at NE 106th St. Along the way, I took this photo, which from the map must be of the southwestern block:
Once on NE 106th St, I turned east, heading for its dead end. This proved to be a parking lot; there were two trails going south, which presumably lead to the linkage between the blocks, and I took a photo from each:
But these trails both dead-ended themselves pretty quickly, which made me think they were probably unofficial trails made by hikers like me. It turns out one can walk along the western edge of the block, north alongside the parking lot, this is pretty obviously an authorised trail (it has signs warning dog walkers not to leave Number Two behind, as I mentioned re Flicker Haven Natural Area a day or two ago), and it too has views of the creek:
but it also leads to a turn which basically provides free access to the northwestern half, the half north of the South Fork, of this block of Beaver Pond Natural Area. Here one does feel rather primæval.
And from here I was able to clamber up the embankment to Roosevelt Way NE, rejoin the street grid, and go on to the next hike, from Victory Creek to Victory Heights, which it's now obvious I'll have to tell you, dear Diary, about in the morning. Sweet dreams until then.
It's embarrassing to be so far behind with you that I'm still narrating to you hikes from mid-October, practically summer. But if it's any consolation, this page and another I plan to write in you today feature photographs taken today. There was a park mystery, and last night I had to visit the 24-hour restroom at View Ridge Playfield, spent the night in that park's shelter shiveringly trying to sleep, and finally this morning set out to resolve that mystery, plus some smaller mysteries, and take some pictures. So this page, and the one I intend to write Wednesday, won't all be summer hikes.
On October 12, then, I took 15th Ave from Sacajawea Playground, where I left off in the last page, to Northgate Way. I'd noticed Patty's Eggnest at its Holman Road location, and that morning I felt rich enough to get breakfast at the Northgate one, an omelet I ate in a bus shelter. Then I went and splurged some more, at Target, whose elevators had been fixed, getting umbrellas, and a cap to replace one that had fallen off my cart once there were masks under it, boosting it too high.
Which brings me to something important. I had, both on June 27 while visiting the 'last seven' parks, and on October 12, nine masks. Three were gifts, and six I bought myself, at Target. These six are very well designed, because they not only cover my mouth and nose, but for even better protection, my eyes as well. Unfortunately, my glasses objected to this, and the rainy day June 27, when I first visited the 'last seven' parks, the mask, which I was then wearing for the first time, fought back, in particular by serving as a slide down which the glasses could fall off my nose.
I admit, for the hike that was finally, on October 12, nearing its end, I wimped out and chose one of the three masks I'd been given, instead.
Anyway, fortified by food, I set off again. This hike had a number of objectives: First, to check on water fountains in North Seattle. Second, to replace the photographs of some parks that I'd lost when my phone was stolen in July. By October 12, that meant mostly what I'd thought, on June 27, were the last seven North Seattle parks I hadn't visited. Third, to visit parks I'd learnt of since. And fourth, to settle various questions about parks along the way, and photograph some of those I hadn't photographed before.
Northgate Park
Introduced May 29 in "South to and from Northgate".
Free-standing water fountain more or less mid-park: NOT RUNNING.
Northgate Park turns out to be oddly bifurcated, its north side full of concrete and, well, weird stuff:
the south, well, not:
I stayed by the Northgate branch of the Seattle Public Library there for a while, catching up on Wi-Fi stuff, but not writing in you, dear Diary.
Maple Leaf Community Garden
This was one of the 'last seven'; in fact, three of those are introduced in this page, and since I covered three in "Lake City Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us!", that leaves only one for the pages ahead. This one is near 5th Ave on 103rd St, actually across that street from Beaver Pond Natural Area, which, however, I didn't visit this time.
In June when I first visited, I found men working to build it, but by October it was a fully functioning ...
P-patch?
Actually the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation lists in its part of the Seattle real property report (which is where the list of the 'last seven' came from) several P-patches, including two of the 'last seven'. It isn't usual, and it's worth asking why each time, but it isn't extraordinary.
In this case, my guess is that the Department of Neighborhoods, the usual custodian of P-patches, maybe doesn't have as much experience taking care of gorgeous old buildings, like the tower that dominates this 'park', as the parks department has.
But that's only a guess.
Victory Creek Confluence Natural Area
This next 'last seven' park is where Victory Creek, as in Victory Creek Park a few blocks north, meets the south branch of Thornton Creek. Or maybe it's just somewhere near the actual confluence. It's hard to tell, because its size as reported, a quarter acre, is nowhere near the size of the woods around the confluence, and of course there's no signage:
(12/15 edit) There's a video embedded there, but near as I can tell, Blogspot is not currently allowing me to write pages that show readers of you, dear Diary, embedded videos. (This may be a general thing, or may be specific to me; dunno.) The other recent page for which this is an issue is "A Problem", which is all about problems with videos and includes a pointer to its video at YouTube. Here's a pointer to this video at YouTube. What the video shows is lots of woods, with no sign singling out one quarter-acre as a public park.
So in this page's title, "Six Parks in Search of Another" (with apologies to Pirandello, who wrote a play whose English title I like, but I still haven't read or seen the play), Victory Creek Confluence Natural Areais the "Another".
In case you want to look for yourself, the official address is 1039 NE 108th St, although my Rand McNally map claims the actual confluence is between 11th and 12th Avenues. The relevant instance of 108th St can be reached from Roosevelt Way.
Victory Creek Park
Introduced in the same page as Northgate Park. I didn't go back to this frustrating park on this hike, so no, it isn't one of the title's "six parks". Rather, I found out while writing this page that the frustrating thing about it - the absence of the picnic tables and playground its sign claims it has - was planned (PDF) as far back as 2018, and presumably happened by the time of my first visit in May.
Victory Heights Playground
Introduced in the same page as Northgate and Victory Creek Parks.
Two water fountains attached to the Victory Heights Co-op Preschool - NOT RUNNING
Note that this makes eleven, not ten, water fountain sites in North Seattle attached to heated buildings, and five, not four, of those not running this year. (See the digression in the recent page "To a Land of Water and Honey".)
This time I took a picture of the translucent playground equipment I thought was neat in May. Unfortunately the weather wasn't cooperative in allowing me also to photograph the coloured shadows they cast.
I actually didn't take any notes about the water fountains on October 12. So when I was done with Meadowbrook, as narrated below, I came back to Victory Heights. Well, no, that isn't quite true. On my October visit, I'd found an entire fantasy trilogy I'd enjoyed, in hardcover at a nearby Little Free Library, but was in no position to carry them away. I talked myself into coming back to see if they were still there, today, and since I didn't find the book bin before reaching the park ... The books weren't there when I did find it. I have two reasons for thinking the water fountains weren't running in October: 1) I remember my relief at finally finding a working fountain at Meadowbrook later that day, and 2) the fountains didn't have much tree litter in them today, but they had too much to have been shut off a week or two ago.
Lavilla Meadows Natural Area
This is the third and last of this page's 'last seven' parks. It's well hidden, but actually findable.
First, find Fischer Place, a diagonal connecting the Victory Heights neighbourhood with the Meadowbrook one. Exit Victory Heights; on foot, one can do this at 102nd St. Cross Lake City Way somewhere that seems safe. Fischer Place starts opposite 102nd, and goes up to 105th west of 27th Ave.
On Fischer, look for Lavilla Dairy. Go in back to the parking lot. Behind the parking lot you should find this:
and this:
It's over four acres, so it's probably all the woods behind Fischer Place.
Meadowbrook Playfield
Introduced May 6 in "Go North, Aging Man!".
Free-standing water fountain near the picnic shelter shown two pages ago - ON, and overflowing enough that I couldn't use it. (Today, however, it was of course NOT RUNNING.)
Water fountain attached to the restroom building west of there - NOT RUNNING October 12; I don't think I bothered today
Free-standing water fountain near the tennis courts, furthest west - ON, and my first chance that day to fill my water bottles; I didn't pass near it today.
The relief a working water fountain gave me that day left me feeling kinda guilty when I left the park without having found a single thing I wanted to photograph. So when I got there today, I was determined to fix it.
See, the problem is general. Playfields, in Seattle's hierarchy of parks, are mainly for big grassy areas for sports (specifically baseball), and even though I played in Little League, I don't find these photogenic. So I always have to more or less do an end run around the park's whole reason for being, find some angle, and Meadowbrook had always seemed angle-free to me.
But the October visit was the first on which (because of Fischer Place) I'd approached along 105th, and noticed a lot of rather un-playfield-like land, greenswards and woods and just disorganised compared to the square playfield norm.
So first of all, yes, there's a brook at Meadowbrook.
It creates something of a view from a well-placed picnic bench:
But a square enough reader might prefer the picture I took first, cynically, figuring playgrounds are always safe, even though I find this one as bland as the rest of the playfield:
(Seattle Public Utilities) Meadowbrook Pond Nature Refuge
This was the mystery I set out to solve this morning. At Matthews Beach there's a map of the Thornton Creek watershed, and it shows a park right across the street from Meadowbrook Playfield. I needed another park to make up the six, not wanting to use Hubbard Homestead, which I still haven't photographed and in which I'd most recently done Number One. So I thought I'd go solve it.
Well, there isn't much mystery. This park not Parks' of course doesn't have usual parks department signage; it also doesn't actually have much frontage on 35th Ave. So for someone as unobservant as me to miss it made sense, but it was there all along.
It doesn't have any restrooms or water fountains, but I fell in love with it and took scads of pictures anyway, too many for this page. In fact, although I'd planned to put one here as a teaser, Blogspot won't let me. So that's why, dear Diary, I plan to write two pages in you today.
