Building a Baseline, part III: Around Northgate

Dear Diary,

Well, I've finished the spreadsheet, uploaded it and shared it, so if I'm extremely lucky, people can now read or download it from here:

Google Drive link 

The total places I'm trying to visit turn out to be 500 - 323 city owned, 126 from OpenStreetMap, and 51 from The Emerald City Resource Guide. 

Today I don't think I can hike at all; but I can write.  And it turns out, there's a lot of news - to me, at least - in this area.  Here's a map.  I should probably tell you, dear Diary, that while I'm writing on my phone, I'm doing most of the work on my Windows laptop.  (My Linux laptop, on which I'd written you for years, is broken.). So this map represents a learning curve.  It is, of course, based on OpenStreetMap.

I covered several of these places in two parts in the third series of regional hikes in May 2021, so I've felt free to not photograph everything this time.

And now to start, in hiking order:

August 4

The news didn't really start this day. 

Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel (A on map)

I've shown you this Seattle Public Utilities park, I think, several times now.  Its address is 330 NE 100th St, and it stretches north to 103rd, near the exit there from the transit station.  It's in the Thornton Place apartment complex.

This time I hiked all the trails, as promised, and found neither restrooms nor water fountains.  It does have lots of benches, and, being an SPU park, lots of explanatory signs.

So I just settled for two photos.  One sign, and one glimpse of the reason the park exists, the South Fork of Thornton Creek.

Maple Leaf Community Garden (B)

This is one of the two P-patches in North Seattle owned by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation.  Its address is 529 NE 103rd St.  It's really a P-patch, a shared garden, but has an interesting tower, which I've shown you before, dear Diary, so this time I settled for photographing a bench with words written on it whose sententiousness pleased me.

 

Beaver Pond Natural Area (C)

OK, this is sort of news.  Years ago, dear Diary, I told you about this park, and then told you I'd gotten it all wrong, and the park was actually twice as big as I'd thought.  So it's extremely humiliating to discover that I was wrong then too, and the park is actually four times as big as I'd originally thought, twice as big as my revised version.

As a result, I have much more to tell you, dear Diary, about this park, than will fit here, so see a separate page coming soon.

I should say, though, that my main memory of this park was that it had lots of litter, and I didn't find any this time.  Also, the part I found first is the basis of its address, 10300 5th Ave NE.  Right next to a bus stop.

Northgate Park (D)

I thought, on August 4th, that the water fountain in this quite bland lawn of a park (address for both the park and the community center below:  10510 5th Ave NE) was the only example of our core topic, water fountain or restroom, that I'd find in this area.  This turned out to be wrong.  That said, the fountain was running, and I refilled my bottle there.

Northgate Branch Library (E)

I verified that the restrooms were open and the water fountains running, and that was that.  Address:  10548 5th Ave NE.

Northgate Community Center (F)

The story is pretty much told in the recent part in "Under Construction".

Hubbard Homestead (G)

This one, too:  link.  With a link to a whole part about this park in the regional hike of May 2021.  Address:  11203 5th Ave NE.

Victory Creek Park (H)

The reason I had to tell you, dear Diary, about the strange absence of litter in Beaver Pond Natural Area, is the severe contrast with Victory Creek Park, whose address is 1056 NE Northgate Way.

This is a very weird park.  It's a few benches and a former playground versus a daylit creek, the titular one, a tributary of the South Fork.  As I mentioned in the "Under Construction" page about Hubbard Homestead, it's adjacent to a QFC, usually entered through the parking lot.  I'm not sure whether to admire Parks for sticking to the fact of the daylit creek, or pity the neighbours who might want a more conventional park.  But I can't help wondering whether the litter says what it isn't politically correct to say out loud, that nature isn't the only thing people want out of parks.

At any rate, I made one attempt to photograph the creek, and took a photo meant to illustrate what it's like walking this park's trails.

August 5

The news starts here. 

Victory Creek Confluence Natural Area (I)

This is one of 2 1/2 Seattle Parks parks in North Seattle that I couldn't find in 2020-2023, as I'm sure you, dear Diary, remember.  Well, this time it was easy.  The King County Parcel Viewer steered me right there, and the address, 1039 NE 108th St, slots this tiny park in right where it should be, between 1019 and 1223.

See, it's the property on that block that isn't just fenced, it's walled:

I trespassed a bit onto 1223's lawn to find the reason.  Someone had littered a boat there!

August 7

This was the day I spent on Beaver Pond Natural Area.

August 18

Northgate Mall's Central Park (J)

Over the years that Northgate Mall has seemed to consist mostly of construction fences, I've occasionally looked at the mall's  Central Park, but all I remember seeing was a concrete plaza where people were sitting on that trendy "bistro" furniture and presumably discussing shopping strategies.

This time, I decided I owed it to the mall, this odd neighbourhood's centerpiece, to look more carefully.  And lo and behold, one level down, there's a small playfield, there was a girls' team practicing there, 

and what was that behind them?

Now, dear Diary, for good reason it's been an article of faith for me that privately owned parks in North Seattle just don't do plumbing.  But the surprises didn't end there.

Look, ma!  It is possible!  A restroom whose door opens to the outside, not just near Northgate, but actually in Northgate Mall!

Who knows?  Come the next pandemic, this restroom may be open.

Well, a lost park found, and a privately owned outdoor restroom, surprises enough, but there's one more to come.

September 1

King County Veterans Program (K)

On page 137 of The Emerald City Resource Guide, 8th edition, in the chapter "Veteran Services", we read:

Provides emergency financial assistance, housing system coordination, case management, social work, and education and employment resources.  Documents required include proof of service (prior or current) as an active duty or reservist member, documentation of King County residency, and proof of income eligibility for financial assistance. 

This program is at 9725 3rd Ave NE, not at all far south of the transit station, but an office building much too swanky to have sidewalks.

This occasions a certain amount of culture clash with some of the program's clients:

Northgate Station (L)

On September 1st, I bought my bus pass at Roosevelt Station, and then explored the station looking for restrooms, for practice.  So it was a welcome surprise to find the ones at Northgate Station, one of whose addresses is 100 NE 103rd St, the first place I looked.

And, yes, the rules were as I'd vaguely remembered:

But the surprise came after I'd put this phone away.  I saw a security guard escorting a customer or two, no surprise given that procedure, but all the guard seemed to do was push the door open.

That mezzanine is not really outside, but if Sound Transit has actually given up on keeping restrooms locked by default, a pattern that goes way back to before Sound Transit itself existed, to when there used to be token restrooms in suburban transit centres, that's very good news.

Anyway, no more surprises, just an SPU property not big enough to be one of their best.

Northgate Pump Station (M)

Near as I can tell, the only example of SPU park style here, at 400 NE 115th St, is a couple of big, old trees.

But that isn't nothing.

Well, dear Diary, that's my baseline for Northgate:

Northgate Park - running water fountain

Northgate Mall - triple water fountain, the parts for humans and dogs running, the part for bottles not running; gendered single user stalls open

Northgate Station - ungendered single user stalls apparently open, and you may rest assured I'll be checking further on that

Let me rest some before explaining to you my career of error about Beaver Pond Natural Area.  Happy times until then.

Under Construction, part V: Northgate Park before

Dear Diary,

The Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation has twenty-six community centers, ten of which are in North Seattle.  Most of those are in parks with the same name:  Ballard Community Center in Ballard Playground, Laurelhurst CC in Laurelhurst Playfield, Loyal Heights CC in Loyal Heights Playfield, and Ravenna-Eckstein CC in Ravenna-Eckstein Park.  Some are drowned in much bigger parks, such as Green Lake or Magnuson.

This can create problems of attribution.  My solution is pretty simple.  All  community centers known to me are single buildings.  So parts of those buildings belong to the community centers; things that aren't parts of those buildings don't.  At Loyal Heights, for example, the restrooms are in the community center building, but with doors that open outside; one of the water fountains is attached to the building, so it's the community center's; the others, free-standing, are the playfield's.

Most of the time, Parks doesn't complain about this system.  But someone is trying to erase Northgate Park in favour of Northgate Community Center, and they're choosing weird ways to do it.  The list of water fountains I downloaded doesn't attribute the attached water fountain to Loyal Heights CC, or any other fountains to any CCs - except that it calls Northgate Park's free-standing water fountain, which is at least twenty feet from the building, Northgate CC's. What's more, the park's official Web page no longer includes the symbol that indicates a water fountain.

And more to this page's point, they're doing the same thing with the park's playground.

Now, to be fair, Northgate Community Center has two doorways, and has intelligently used them to run the child care stuff that all the community centers are still doing out of one door, and the rest of the stuff community centers normally do out of the other.  Better still, the child care doorway faces the playground.  And, in fact, the only people I saw using the playground on three brief visits were coming out of the community center, not separately visiting the park or spilling out of the adjacent Northgate branch Library.

So if Northgate CC weren't already trying to steal a water fountain, I'd probably be OK with them taking credit for this playground.  But they overreached.

Which, I think, is why Northgate Park is a surprise. It isn't in the article that initially prompted this page, and it isn't in the list I used to add some parks to the article's list.  I only came across it visiting the park for my baseline.  My best guess is that whoever at Northgate CC is so grabby of Northgate Park's stuff doesn't want their project rubbing shoulders with other ordinary parks' projects.

Anyway, though, going forward, I'll be looking for other cowboy project signs while I look for water fountains.

As to the schedule that sign swears by, well, I'll have more to say about timing in the next two parts of this page.  But on the premise that the Northgate Park playground may go away soon, here's a photo:

Good night, dear Diary.
  

Last Hike: More open restrooms, fewer running fountains

Dear Diary,

Well, today was my last hike this month for you.  I went to twelve parks.  All have water fountains, and six also have restrooms:

• Matthews Beach (both)
• Meadowbrook Playfield (both)
• Victory Heights Playground (fountain)
• Maple Leaf Reservoir Park (both)
• Licton Springs Park (both)
• Northgate Park (fountain)
• Pinehurst Playground (fountain)
• Jackson Park (both)
• Little Brook Park (both)
• Cedar Park (fountain)
• Albert Davis Park (fountain)
• Virgil Flaim Park (fountain)

I also went back to the street fountain on N 45th St.

My object was to complete the Google Drive folder in which I keep the boring door shots and such from the hikes I just finished.  I hadn't re-visited the parks from the third region I hiked earlier in May, as I had the parks from the first two, and so didn't have photos of them at Google Drive.  That is now fixed, as is my lack of a photo of that street fountain (which still isn't running).

Two major changes among those parks, plus some minor ones I'll cover below.  The first major one is that I found the restroom open at Little Brook Park, and the lock placed in such a way that it would not prevent latching the door.  I think that's the first time I've seen it like that, and expand on that a bit below.  The second major change is that while the water is still running to the water fountain at Virgil Flaim Park, some enterprising person has vandalised the fountain such that it's probably now easier to fill bottles there, but certainly harder to drink from the fountain.

I have nothing to say about some of the parks listed above, so don't say anything about them in this page, except what I just said:  there are now photos at Google Drive showing whether the restrooms were open or the water fountains running as of my last visit.

Matthews Beach

As in every one of my visits to date - none of which have taken place in calendrical summer - I found the shower restrooms on the lake side of the restroom building closed.  As in most of my visits to date, I also found one of the single-user stalls on the other side boarded up.  The remaining single-user stall has one toilet, no urinal, one sink which splashed me when I used it, but not as badly as the south-facing sink at Soundview Playfield, one dryer, and one soap dispenser.

The water fountain was not running.

Meadowbrook Community Center, Playfield and Pool

This is the sign I photographed by night on "Hike 9C", this time by day so it can be read:

The mural is signed "Miller" as is another adjacent; I don't know more.

The people staffing the pool as a shower and restroom provider have been busily posting updates:

unlike most of the Community Centers, including this one, although this one has at least taken down its sign saying it would close for the inauguration:

Meadowbrook Playfield's restrooms were open, as expected (even the hopelessly outdated - well, hmmm, some things on the map offered by the Seattle Department of Human Services that I hiked last January to check, some things have been updated, for example Meridian Playground's restrooms are now mapped as open, other things haven't, such as the U-District location of the Urban Rest Stop still shown as open - but anyway, my point was, that until today that map was very out of date, but even it showed Meadowbrook Playfield's restrooms as having re-opened).

Um, yeah, so the Meadowbrook Playfield men's room has two toilets with stall doors, one urinal, one sink, one dryer, and one soap dispenser.

I found all three of Meadowbrook Playfield's water fountains this time, exactly where I'd found them before.  Two ran in October, but none are running now.

Maple Leaf Reservoir Park

The restrooms were open, and there was even an employee of the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation there cleaning them.  When I update the maps tomorrow, I'll change this park's restrooms to half red, half blue.

Licton Springs Park

Unlike most of the restrooms closed in Ballard and southern "NE", but like University Playground and Little Brook, this park's restrooms have no sign on their doors announcing why they're closed.  The men's room's stuff is mostly around a bend from the door, but I could see most of the women's room - the stalls have doors, in both rooms, but one of the women's stall doors had swung open - and I saw no damage.  I've heard there's damage at University Playground but not heard a convincing explanation why that was the only restroom damage not fixed last year in North Seattle, and I've also heard a completely different reason for why those restrooms haven't opened.  I figure without even a half-assed sign like those at Ravenna Park's "upper" restrooms, there's no reason I should assume a park restroom is closed because it has to be.

Anyway.  Licton Springs's water fountains are still running.

Northgate Community Center and Park

After I visited this park as part of the third region, I complained vigourously about the way the people working for Curative Inc at a COVID testing site at the south end of the park had blocked off large parts of it.  Whether because someone at the city actually read that page (something I haven't seen signs of in months), or because someone else complained effectively, or maybe because there's an actual considerate human being among Curative's local employees, their tape is now much more carefully placed.  In particular, although it runs for some distance alongside the playground and the Community Center's front, it leaves paved paths into both areas open.  I was in a hurry, however - this was only the hike's halfway point - and took only a water fountain photo (still not running), and no photos of the tape or the Center's front, at which I didn't even look.  Sorry, dear Diary.

Pinehurst Playground

As my photo shows, the water fountain here is running rather low.  I had decided to try the water of parks whose water I hadn't tried yet, so I drained the second bottle I was carrying, but it was so hard to fill a bottle (it only got halfway, actually) that I gave up on filling two.

 

Jackson Park

I owe an apology to the Jackson Park café, which I failed miserably to describe on the basis of vague, hurried impressions on my first visit earlier this month.  (All my previous visits to this park had been too early in the morning or too late in the evening for the place to be open.)  I basically conveyed my surprise that it isn't what one normally thinks of as a "café".  Well, duh, because even though they call it that at Jackson Park, it's actually much more like a bar and grill, or at least a rather unpretentious restaurant.  It does have a few pastries, and while they're definitely not Little Debbie, they also aren't the hand-crafted wonders most actual cafés take pride in.  I got a grilled cheese sandwich to go, trying to make up for many uses of their driving range men's room, and it was pretty good blocks later.

That men's room is a single-user stall with one toilet, no urinal, one sink, one dryer, and one soap dispenser.  Jackson Park is almost entirely devoted to a sport, so this is a fair test, and I did not see yellow spots on the toilet seat.  Score one against my argument that it's a bad idea to eliminate urinals from park restrooms.

I also looked carefully at the buildings, and Open Street Map hasn't left out a building, but it may have misplaced it.  Again, the map:

The building on the upper left could be the building by the driving range, but it can't be, because it doesn't really face the driving range, which is that big lighter green area on the top left.  It also isn't anywhere near wide enough.  I'm not sure I can learn enough to fix things like this in Open Street Map, but it needs fixed.  Anyway, though, I thought that was a building between the wide lower building and the unmapped driving range building, but there is no third building in that sequence; what I described as a "workshop" was actually a conflation in my memory of "employees only" doors in both buildings, the second of which (the one behind the part of the driving range building I'm familiar with) is rather workshoppish.

Little Brook Park

As noted above, I found the restroom not only open, but for the first time opened in such a way that the lock that closes it at night doesn't also keep users from latching it by day.

I don't know how much of this to attribute to the presence of a parks department employee, whose job it is to provide fun for people in neighbourhoods.  Someone, probably him, had set up a stereo providing music, and a portable basketball hoop, at which he was trying to teach a couple of teenagers some moves.  The parks department slogan is, I think, "Neighborhood Rec'n"; at least that's what's on their trucks.  However, a quick Google search on that turned up 0 results, so I just don't know.

Anyway, my point is, I don't know whether Little Brook's restroom has actually opened for the season or not, let alone whether its door will be reliably carefully arranged in future.

It has one toilet with no meaningful door, no urinal, one sink, one dryer, and a spot where someone had stolen one soap dispenser.

Cedar Park

Awkwardly, I found myself following a family that includes a teenaged girl for about half a dozen blocks on the way to this park.

It has a water fountain that ran last October, but isn't running now.

Albert Davis Park

This park was officially closed for one week after its May 6 sweep.  Supposedly that closure was to enable parks department employees to start restoring the park from the damage done by an encampment that was there for more than a year.  The parks department web page says nothing now about a closure, so presumably it hasn't been extended.

I visited this park twice during the closure, in prime daylight hours, and saw neither department employees nor their trucks.  Now it turns out they didn't even bother to show up to take down their closure materials.  For shame!

Virgil Flaim Park

As I walked to this park, a visibly homeless man saw the bottle in one of my satchel pockets and asked if I had any water to spare.  I didn't - for one thing, I've been drinking from that bottle for months, and for another, there were only a few sips in it - but I assured him that the water fountain in Virgil Flaim Park, just a block away, was running.  I had walked too far to hear his reply.

This park had the only outdoor water fountain known to me running in Lake City.  (I visited the Fred Meyer in the area today, and it may have a water fountain that's running, but I didn't find one.  The Lake City branch of the Seattle Public Library, and the Lake City Community Center, are both open limited hours.)  It's still running, but no longer drinkable from.

Some clever and immoral person, probably a resident of one of the neighbouring RVs, has extracted the pipe that delivers water to the spigot, and routed it so it instead delivers water toward the ground.  I think it's probably turnable enough to be a great bottle-filler, but can't be made a useable drinking spout.  I was too disgusted - this really is the kind of vandalism homeless people are endlessly accused of, plain as day really our fault this time - to experiment, and far too disgusted to try to fill my own bottle as I'd planned.

[EDIT 6/11 - All wrong.  I went back June 8, and found that the water actually comes not from this detached pipe, but from a hole in the side of another pipe, which makes it useless for filling bottles as well as for drinking directly.  I'm pretty sure this was sabotage rather than metal theft, and the main victims are probably the nearby homeless, so the saboteur was probably someone housed who objects to the existence of homeless people.  I apologise for blaming the victims.]

And from there, or anyway a few blocks from there, I caught a bus away, got a picture of the still not running N 45th St water fountain, and went on.

I still have one project to do, which I hope to accomplish next week, but we'll see.  At any rate, I hope not to hike for you next month, dear Diary.  Tomorrow, I should be able to update the spreadsheet in the Google Drive folder, and also show you final May maps of open and closed restrooms and running and otherwise water fountains.  Until then good night.

A Hike in Northgate, part I

Dear Diary,

How are you today?  I'm hoping to burden you with at least five more pages, finishing Wednesday's hikes, and then a couple more on my next plans, so I hope you're doing well.

When I first planned the hikes for the region between I-5 and Lake City Way NE in Seattle, there was this scary hike featuring way too many sites.  So I split it up.  There's less distance between this hike and the next than between any of the other pairs in the region - yes, that's right, the walk from Hubbard Homestead to the Seattle Public Library's Northgate branch is longer than the walk across Roosevelt Way NE, or perhaps more to the point, the walk from Beaver Pond Natural Area to Victory Creek Park.

But this one featured lots more photos, because I documented Beaver Pond fairly fully, but wimped out on both Victory Creek Park and Kingfisher Natural Area.  So this one has to be split into two parts.

A map (for both parts; A through C are in this one, D through F in the other, and yes, that means I'm splitting Beaver Pond up):

The Seattle Public Library, Northgate branch

The postcard shot:

The mostly closed doors:

Northgate Park and Community Center

I assume the Community Center is still closed to the public, but don't know, because it's been closed to the public.  Let me start the explanation with this photo:

There's still a "sanican" in Northgate Park, although it was supposed to be so "temporary" that it didn't deserve a place on a winter hygiene map.  It's still from the main company Seattle uses.  But this time, unlike January, it's locked.  Presumably the people who have the keys are the people it was put there for, the employees of the Curative testing site in the park.

Curative is a company founded in California in January 2020 which quickly turned to become mainly a COVID-19 testing company.  For their one-year anniversary, the FDA announced that their tests were prone to false negatives, that is, to telling (specifically) asymptomatic carriers of the disease that they didn't have it.  Nevertheless, since that time they've felt confident enough to shut off large parts of Northgate Park.  Not the playground:

and not the water fountain, which for a second year in a row isn't running:

But Curative is comfortable blocking both doors of the Community Center:

and making access to the notice board dubious:

One basically has to choose, when arriving at the park, between the lawn, and the (largely blocked) paved access to various places:

And while I was there Wednesday, they had a mild-mannered, lab-coated, but very large man there to enforce all these rules.

The Jackson Park Golf Course pays Seattle rent.  Does Curative?  And if so, was the rent calculated to include blocking public access to so much of the park, and all of the community center?

It's interesting that at a time when everyone else is moving towards looser rules, this park is moving in the other direction.  For how long does Curative get to do this?  For how many more months, or years?

Beaver Pond Natural Area

For "South to and from Northgate" last year, I walked the southwestern block of this park pretty fully, and then completely ignored the northeastern block.  This page includes my photos of the southwestern block, but I didn't turn toward the northeastern block until after visiting two more places, one of which gave me the clue I needed to find a way into that block.

So OK.  The southwestern half of Beaver Pond Natural Area is essentially a single trail built around the South Fork of Thornton Creek, and it's right across the street from Northgate Mall, so it's pretty popular, and pretty littered.  (As a Natural Area, of course, it offers no trash cans.)  It connects to four entrances, three of which include stairs:

These entrances, which are marked with dots on the map above, are on NE 103rd and 104th Streets east of 5th Ave NE, and on NE 104th and 105th Streets west of 8th Ave NE.  The 105th entrance is the one without stairs.

One doesn't always feel present in a primæval wilderness there.

It also has a surprising number of trees evidently not felled by beavers:

But parts of it can feel pretty natural:

And it does, in particular, get the hiker pretty close to the creek:

However, there's a warning about that creek:

so don't get too close.

I have a few more pictures of the other half ready for the next page.  Until then, dear Diary.  I intend to work until 10 P.M., and then resume at 8 A.M. tomorrow.

Almost done...

Dear Diary,

No, of course I'm not almost done hiking around testing water fountains and photographing parks.  I'm almost done with the single region, of the eleven into which I've divided North Seattle this time, that had the most sites to visit.  At this point I have reason to go back to three sometime soon.

Executive summary:

Twenty-four of the sites were official parks owned or managed by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation.  None of the other sites had restrooms whose doors opened to the outdoors, "sanican"s, hand-washing stations, SPU sinks, or outdoor water fountains.  However, two of the other sites are buildings that have partly re-opened to the public, including restrooms whose doors open to the indoors and indoor water fountains.

Restrooms:

Jackson Park - Three pairs of restrooms.  Two pairs, multi-user and gendered, open to the indoors of buildings that have been open to the public since at least last May.  The third opens to the outdoors, and consists of gendered single-user stalls; this is the only one I've used.

Lake City Community Center - I know nothing about them but assume they exist.  The community center is open a few hours some days, staffed by staffers of the charity God's Lil' Acre.

Little Brook Park - One restroom (not a pair, not gendered, not lockable, very peepable).  I found it locked Monday at 1:54 P.M. but forgot to put the newspaper in the photo.  I found it locked today at 11:37 A.M. and did put today's newspaper into the photo.

Maple Leaf Reservoir Park - One pair of multi-user, gendered, restrooms.  I found them locked at 6:37 P.M. (though my photos with newspaper are a bit later); a woman who saw me photographing them spoke with me at some length and, in particular, informed me that they had been locked not long before I got there.  Since this is well within a reasonable time of 7 P.M., the official closing time, I have to get back there soon; this is the most important of the three parks I hope to re-visit before telling you, dear Diary, in more detail about them.

Park buildings that might offer restrooms under normal circumstances but aren't offering them now include the Northgate Community Center and the building on the grounds of the Thornton Creek Addition.

Non-park city-owned building that currently offers restrooms with doors that open indoors:

Seattle Public Library, Lake City branch.  I'm pretty sure I've used this branch's restrooms in the past, but don't remember anything about them.

Non-park buildings that normally offer restrooms with doors that open indoors, or that I presume do so, but aren't offering them now:  Lake City Neighborhood Service Center; Seattle Public Library, Northgate branch.

I deliberately haven't investigated other levels of government this time.

Various groceries, and probably at least some other businesses, also currently offer restrooms with doors that open indoors; a Dick's Drive-In location near downtown Lake City has restrooms with doors that open outdoors, and there may conceivably be other such businesses.

Water fountains

Albert Davis Park - One, off.  I've never found this one running.

Jackson Park - Two, running.  These have run each time I've visited (May and October; I skipped January because the map I was checking didn't include this park, but was told in October that they would run in January too).

Little Brook Park - One, off both days I visited.  This was running last May but off in October and January.

Maple Leaf Reservoir Park - One, off.  I've never found this one running.

Northgate Park - One, off.  I've never found this one running.

Pinehurst Playground - One, running.  This ran last May and October but not in January.

Victory Heights Playground - Two, off.  I've never found these running.  (I didn't visit in January because there were no restrooms or "sanican"s there).

Virgil Flaim Park - One, running.  This was off last May but running last October.  (I didn't visit in January.)

I assume the situation for indoors water fountains is similar to that for restrooms summarised above.  I have yet to find outdoor water fountains in this region other than in Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation parks.

"Sanican"s and related things

I can't summarise these parks' whole histories with these, only what I know basically from writing you, dear Diary.  There are unlocked "sanican"s more or less all over town outside the parks, but I pay them limited attention since I don't consider a "sanican" without even a hand-washing station an acceptable thing to use except in emergencies.

Albert Davis Park (and/or other nearby city institutions) - Was swept last Thursday, May 6.  As of Monday, May 10, the "sanican"s, hand-washing station, and SPU sink I had seen in January were gone.  I think the "sanican"s and hand-washing station, but not the SPU sink, went to Lake City Mini-Park.

Jackson Park - Removed "sanican"s from the golf links early in the pandemic, according to two employees with whom I spoke last year; I haven't asked whether they've been brought back yet.  I don't know there to have been hand-washing stations.

Lake City Mini-Park - Had more "sanican"s and one more hand-washing station than it had in January.  Both hand-washing stations worked on Monday.

Maple Leaf Reservoir Park - The woman with whom I spoke today said that a few years ago, someone lit a fire in at least one of the restrooms, so the parks department brought in a "sanican" until they could fix the restroom(s).  Then someone burned the "sanican".  I've never seen one there.

Northgate Park - The one I found in January is still there (so evidently it hadn't been borrowed from B. F. Day Playground, whose "sanican" has returned, after all).  However, it's now locked.

Pinehurst Playground - Still has one.

Parks

Albert Davis Park - Only photos of the "sanican"s (etc.) before.

Beaver Pond Natural Area - No photos before.

Flicker Haven Natural Area - No photos before.

Homewood Natural Area

Hubbard Homestead

Jackson Park - No photos before.

Kingfisher Natural Area - No photos before, and not much this time; this is the least urgent of the three I hope to re-visit before telling you, dear Diary, about them in detail.

Lake City Community Center - I only took photos of signs this time.

Lake City Mini-Park - Only photos of the "sanican"s (etc.) in the past and this time.

Licorice Fern Natural Area - No photos before.

Little Brook Park

Maple Leaf Community Garden

Maple Leaf Reservoir Park - So far this time, only photos of the restrooms and fountain.

Northgate Community Center - Wasn't able to approach closely this time.

Northgate Park

Pinehurst Playground

Pinehurst Pocket Park - No photos before.

Rainbow Point - No photos before.  I took today, among others, view photos, but they were towards the sun, so this is the medium-importance park to re-visit.

Sacajawea Playground

Thornton Creek Addition - No photos before (first visit).

Victory Creek Confluence Natural Area - I have a hypothesis, with photo, as to its location, but if my hypothesis is right, it's more or less inaccessible to the public.

Victory Creek Park

Victory Heights Playground - This time I was finally able to photograph the coloured shadows the playground equipment casts.  Yay!

Virgil Flaim Park

Waldo Woods - This time I photographed the small area that isn't walled off from the public.

I have to get these photos off my phone and into you, dear Diary, before I can usefully hike again, so expect at least eight pages (heck, just from the number of photos, more like sixteen) in the next two or three days.  Until then, happy times...

Hike 1A: Inconvenients, part II

Dear Diary,

They said this winter would probably be cold and wet.  So far, half right.  It's certainly been wet, and part of my fear of rain comes from the certainty that nothing that gets wet will dry out anytime soon.  But even though I've been shivering a lot, it hasn't been all that cold.  My basic clothing right now, thanks to my own lazy refusal to go change, is absurdly underdressed for winter, and the only reason I'm getting away with it is mild temperatures.

We should, in fact, dear Diary, consider this in relation to your upcoming birthday.  Our wonderful mayor was getting a lot of criticism, last March, because she sent people to closed park restrooms.  Well, that was careless (and it isn't a good thing that her parks department is repeating the mistake this year) but many of those restrooms should in fact have stayed closed; the last night to reach the mid-30s was April 13, one week after she ordered those rooms opened.

Um, so, anyway.  It's been warm.  Most of the time these days, when climbing hills with my cart, I regret it if I don't actually strip down to my seasonally inappropriate T-shirt.  And since it was close to noon, of course that happened yesterday as I climbed Maple Leaf Hill.  I'd tried to use the topographic maps I've downloaded to plan my travels, and it partly worked, but it was still uphill.

N 45th St

But first I have to backtrack a bit; last night I forgot something important.  On my way to Wallingford Playfield I knew I'd pass the street water fountain on N 45th St near Wallingford Ave N, in front of QFC.

Now, in "Water Fountains:  Things We've Lost, Part II" on May 1, I boldly claimed that these street fountains stayed on all winter, little dreaming that when winter came I'd still be writing you and accountable for that.  I strongly suspect what allows this to work is heat supplied by nearby institutions, which would explain deference the fountains sometimes show to their neighbours, most obviously the one painted red in front of Bartell Drugs at 5th Ave and Stewart St.

I already knew that the peculiar fountain on 15th Ave NE south of NE 43rd St had stopped running, though not whether that was for the winter or permanently (due to its damage and to construction nearby).  And the street-style fountain on the Burke-Gilman Trail had been shut off, but that happens every winter.

So I made a deal with myself.  If the fountain was working, I'd get the day's groceries at the QFC that probably made that possible.  It was, so I happily, um, well, no, in the rain it was actually a tedious nuisance, but still, I was able to fill my bottles.  And on my way from Wallingford Playfield to Meridian Playground went and got the day's food at QFC.

Maple Leaf Reservoir Park

I first told you, dear Diary, about this park May 29, in "South to and from Northgate".  The first pictures I showed you were in "Standing Room Only, Part V:  Elsewhere" November 24, but rather more came three days later in "The Kingdom of the Winds".

Between that, and worry that I'd have to deal again with the harasser mentioned in that page, and the fact that the park was crowded enough (though socially distanced) to give me some trouble finding a place to eat the food I'd bought - well, on this visit, I only took the three photos I'd come to take:

Last winter, these rooms were supposed to stay open, and they're on both the current HSD and the outdated Parks maps; no surprises here.

As I got ready to leave, a man with an accent similar to the harasser's, but not similar in voice or appearance, asked me for cash, and I refused.

Northgate Park, Community Center and Library

Turns out the peak of Maple Leaf Hill is actually on Roosevelt, so I went down to 5th Ave NE to avoid it.  I resisted the impulse to hike into Beaver Pond Natural Area to photograph the South Fork of Thornton Creek.  My missions were:  Northgate Community Center, to photograph its closed doors, and Target, to replace my umbrella.

At first I went to what turned out to be the wrong door of the Community Center, where I found something astonishing.

Do you see that, dear Diary?  An actual wooden bench actually sheltered?

Anyway, it was the wrong door, so I went round front.  The postcard shot:

And the closed door:

Now, that sign is arguably not entirely true.  This page offers signup for child care starting Tuesday, September 8, which means 2020, at a bunch of community centres, including four in North Seattle:  Bitter Lake, Meadowbrook, Ravenna-Eckstein - and Northgate.  Considerable physical evidence attests that this care is in fact being provided at Northgate, which would explain all the health check stuff at the door.  (Why check the health of people entering the building if nobody is entering it?)  However, I haven't seen actual kids, so still could be wrong.

Anyway, as I turned to go, I found something else astonishing.

This is not, up to right now, on either the HSD or the Parks map.  Now, the Parks map may be bureaucratically restricted, showing only things Parks pays for; that might explain its omissions both at University Playground and here.  (Though that's not a very helpful sort of map.)  Alternatively, this might be omitted from the Parks map if its physical location is actually the library's property.

But library and park are both city property, so unless this "sanican" unlocked itself and walked to Northgate from a nearby construction site, it's city-funded - which should qualify it for the HSD map.  And I wrote to HSD nearly 24 hours ago now.  I'm mildly surprised their map still omits it.

As to the interior?  Plenty of toilet paper, but dear Diary, did you remember the angle of that doohickey in yesterday's photo?

Another "sanican" without sanitiser.  This makes four now.

Well, I went to Target, and found the last umbrella of the same size and colour that they had.  Then I checked my phone and found that I was nearing my photo limit.  So I went to

Hubbard Homestead

And while I sat on an already mostly dry wooden bench there and played a trick on my phone to let me take more photos, I remembered that I still have not shown you, dear Diary, a single picture of this unassuming park where I have now several times stopped for such utilitarian purposes.  I didn't have time to study the park properly, but hope these two photos conveniently close to where I'd sat will tide you over, dear Diary, until I do.

More stones

A pond.  I hadn't at all remembered a pond.

I need to get moving, dear Diary, but still hope to find time to write another page in you tonight.  We'll see.  [EDIT a few hours later, but technically the next day.  Nope, I've gathered the data but they still don't make sense to me, so not tonight.  Good night, dear Diary.]