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 across the Pinehurst Plateau

Dear Diary,

From downtown Lake City I headed south along Lake City Way NE.  My first destination was a Natural Area on that road that, like Flicker Haven, gets ignored by mappers.  Like most Natural Areas in North Seattle, it's in a lowland, but as I learnt while working on the page about the South Fork of Thornton Creek, a page of "Land and Water" I haven't actually written in you yet, the land goes uphill from it not because of a hill, but because of an eastward salient, between the North and South Forks of Thornton Creek, of the plateau that dominates north-central Seattle.  This eastern mini-plateau is essentially what's under the Pinehurst neighbourhood, so, since I don't know it to have its own name, the choice is pretty obvious.

Oh, and although I got all that from a topographical map, in fact that walk Monday evening did entail going uphill, walking on the flat a long way, and then going downhill.  Score one for cartographers!

This is the least compact hike I've taken in this region, which is why the plateau is the only unifying thing I can think of.  Hubbard Homestead is relatively far from the other Northgate parks, Homewood Natural Area from the other Lake City ones, and the Pinehurst parks aren't all that close to anything.  This was, in other words, a real hike.

I took seventeen photos as I walked from that Natural Area to Hubbard Homestead north of Northgate, and Blogspot has apparently let me, this time, put them all in one page.

Map:

Homewood Natural Area

As I said, this one is ignored by the usual mappers - both Google Maps and Open Street Map just leave it blank (Open Street Map, which usually indicates woods, doesn't even do that there).  The Thornton Creek watershed map (PDF) includes it, though, and there's a Seattle city government page documenting a 2017 sweep (PDF), with lots of photos and a map.  Anyway, it's along the western side of Lake City Way about halfway down the block between NE 117th and 120th Streets.  It has one trail, which goes more or less straight down to the creek.

I haven't entirely ignored it, however; this is the only Natural Area in this region that I'd actually shown you pictures of already, dear Diary, in "Lake City Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us!" last November, a picture of its sign and a picture of the North Fork there.  So this time I confined myself to one more photo of the creek:

and took a few random landscape shots:

Since this is the last we'll see of the North Fork in this region's hikes, dear Diary, I feel obligated to note that I still haven't figured out one parks department property listed in the 2020 real property report:  "Thornton Creek - North Branch - Part Esmt", property #416, 6 1/4 acres, supposed address Lake City Way NE.  Now, the thing is, the South Fork does run along LCW for a while, but the North Fork just crosses the street, where Homewood Natural Area is.  I don't know whether this means the city owns 6 1/4 acres specifically of the creek bed from Licorice Fern Natural Area to Homewood, which would explain why so much of that creek is daylit, or what exactly, and none of the maps I use shows this ostensible park.

Pinehurst Pocket Park

My first visit to this park was near or at night, and I was much impressed, but you, dear Diary, weren't to know it; in "Top of the City", part I I just called it "very pleasant" and moved on right away, never to mention it again for months.  So I imagine you were pretty surprised when in "What's in a Name?" I called it out as a quarter-acre or less park that I would've regretted not seeing.  I was kind of surprised too.  So I wasn't sure what to expect on returning.

Well, it isn't the perfect park, and the art I mentioned isn't great art.  But it is an interesting place to rest a bit, with interesting things to look at, which is all I needed that evening, and all I would imagine any of your readers would need to justify a visit.  It's certainly the boutique park of this general area.

I remembered art in a kiosk, which this page attests wasn't a bogus memory, but didn't find the kiosk this time.  What I did see is a sort of inlay in the pavement, sadly dirty after days without rain, but even so more effective than this photo can be:

For a much better photo, see this page, which credits an artist named Sara Mall Johani.  Apparently the inlays are actually meant to enable kids' games.

Also largely for the kids, and apparently also by Johani, a rather exotic model tractor, which the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation page says is in memory of a man who used to drive a steam tractor around the neighbourhood as recently as the 1960s:

The pages I read also credit Johani with pillars I haven't yet noticed.

The park's actual focus, according to the signage on the spot, is not artistic but environmental, so for people uninterested in art, there's that, and here's a landscape in which such people may be able to spot features that didn't interest me:

I was also amused by this:

So all in all, it was a satisfying, if not earth-shaking, reunion.

Pinehurst Playground

This is the only park in this page with public-facing plumbing - a water fountain, which I've found running on every visit so far, including Monday's:

It also has a sanican:

which the city's map of hygiene services persists in falsely claiming is ADA-compliant, although I told the map's makers otherwise months ago:

I've shown you, dear Diary, non-plumbing photos of this park before, well anyway one or two, so this time I photographed the playground:

a grill in front of the baseball field:

and a miscellaneous landscape:

As usual when I've visited, the basketball half-court was too busy to photograph.  I'm starting to think half-courts are probably more common in North Seattle parks than either full courts, or the hoops alone that I thought the norm.

Pinehurst P-Patch

This P-Patch is on the more or less flat, thankfully:

but has somewhat confused signage:

Northgate Pump Station

This Seattle Public Utilities facility is a working one, is not one of their parks, and there's no public access inside the building, but they did put a sign out front, and also parkified the premises quite a bit, so I took one picture:

Note, though, Seattle City Light is, despite its do-gooding, much less of a public-facing landowner, and I would not photograph - have on my last hike not photographed - a Seattle City Light building closed to the public but with similarly parklike landscaping.

Hubbard Homestead

Way back in January, in "Hike 1A", part II, I promised this park, for services abundantly rendered, a full treatment.  But I reached it after sunset, which was hardly the ideal time to try to grok a park.  So I only took one photo as testimony that I hadn't forgotten the promise:

and in fact came back Wednesday.  So assuming I return OK from the errands I have planned for the next few hours, I hope to keep that promise tonight, as the second page I write in you about the Wednesday hikes, dear Diary.  Until then!

A Tale of Three Lake Cities

Dear Diary,

I just got home from visiting a bunch of sites, including twelve parks, half of which I'd never photographed before.  So I'd tell you all about it, except that it's late and my house has quiet time starting quite a few minutes ago, which isn't really consistent with showing you a bunch of photos.

Instead, I'll summarise.

EDIT 5/11:  Map of the region, courtesy of the Open Street Map project.

Hike 1:  Northern Lake City.  One park:  Little Brook Park, photographed before.  Restroom closed, water fountain not running.  That water fountain ran in May of last year, but not in October.  I've always assumed it was turned off in summer, like the fountain in Burke-Gilman Playground Park, but then never turned back on.  However, it's possible that it's broken somewhere that doesn't show.  Or it really was forgotten last summer, but it's on the same water supply as the restroom, and the reason it's off now is that that hasn't been turned back on.  My point is that while this is proof that the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation is not, in fact, re-enacting last year, it doesn't prove much else.

Hike 2:  Jackson Park and vicinity.  Three parks:  Flicker Haven Natural Area, Jackson Park and Licorice Fern Natural Area, none of which I'd shown you photographs of before, dear Diary.  Jackson Park has six restrooms (three pairs), all of which I found open (this is both the first time I've photographed the doors, and the first time I've seen one pair, because before today I'd only visited Jackson Park early, and the café doesn't open until later), and two water fountains, both of which I found running.

Little Brook Park is in a black neighbourhood, Jackson Park a white one, and their users reflect this.  On the other hand, Little Brook is publicly managed, Jackson privately.  So I wondered, is this an instance of racism or one of public incompetence and private competence?  It certainly seemed a straightforward tale of two more-or-less Lake Cities.  But then:

Hike 3:  Downtown Lake City (west of Lake City Way), whose population, both homeless and housed, is mixed in race.  Four parks:  Albert Davis Park, Lake City Mini Park, Thornton Creek Addition and Virgil Flaim Park.  I've photographed only "sanican"s and other plumbing in Albert Davis (and/or the Lake City Community Center) and Lake City Mini, and hadn't visited Thornton Creek Addition at all before today.  Albert Davis has a water fountain I didn't remember to check; it didn't run last year.  Albert Davis was swept a few days ago, and is now officially closed through Thursday; its SPU sink is no longer in a Lake City park, but its "sanican"s went to Lake City Mini, which also now has two working hand-washing stations.  Virgil Flaim has a water fountain that ran last October, and is running now.  The pair of park restrooms downtown Lake City badly needs to get before The Big One strikes has not yet been built in Virgil Flaim.  But also, the Lake City Community Center is keeping a few open hours thanks to the people from the charity God's Lil' Acre, and the Lake City branch of the Seattle Public Library has re-opened in the limited way a few libraries outside North Seattle had already done.

So at this point I didn't know what to think.  To complete the story, though:

Hike 4:  Across Pinehurst plateau.  Four parks:  Homewood Natural Area, Hubbard Homestead, Pinehurst Playground and Pinehurst Pocket Park.  I'd shown you photographs of all but the last, dear Diary.  Pinehurst Playground has a water fountain, which I found running (as it had last May and October), and a "sanican", but no hand-washing station.

All for now, dear Diary; some food for thought, and of course an incomplete summary of four or more upcoming pages in you.  Good night!

Hike 6C: Far Northeast

Dear Diary,

This is a short page about two parks that I introduced to you much earlier than the previous page's parks.  It also features my first surprise from not reading the map carefully beforehand (and, may I add, from not expecting the worst).  All photographs were taken on January 14.

Northacres Park and Playfield

This large-ish park on the western border of northeast Seattle first appeared in you, dear Diary, May 28 in "Top of the City" part II.  Most of the photos I've shown you appeared November 12 in "To a Land of Water and Honey".  And I've mentioned the park many other times, which brings me to the surprise.

Northacres has two entrances with very different features.  The "playfield" entrance on 3rd Ave NE leads to two big things, baseball fields and to a dogs' off-leash area.  The "park" entrance on 1st Ave NE leads to a playground, picnic area, and miscellaneous other stuff that isn't so big.  Between the two is a woods strewn with trails.  Each of the two has a restroom building; two water fountains are attached to the park building, while one is either attached to or free-standing very very close to the playfield building.

And the reason I called a previous page "To a Land of Water and Honey", as well as mentioned Northacres a bunch more times, is that I'd been told by an employee of the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation that Northacres Park's park-side water fountains would stay on all winter.  Jackson Park, in the same general area, is the only other park where I was told that.

So imagine my surprise to find these on the doors of Northacres's park-side restrooms:

Now, the building these restrooms are in does look kind of old:

but with that old building's shiny new single-user all-gender stalls closed, would the building's water fountains be running?  They would not.

Now, here's the thing.  Northacres Park's park-side water fountains are so made that one has to press the button to call the water for some seconds before the water comes.  I was told that this was so as to make those water fountains safe to run in the winter.  Cal Anderson Park's shiny new main water fountain has the same property, so I assumed it was another winter-safe fountain.  In January I found neither of these running.

I asked Rachel Schulkin, the parks department's communications manager, whether any parks elsewhere in Seattle had such water fountains that actually were running this winter.  This question led to confusion over terminology, and finally to a statement that according to the department's plumber, the department owns no water fountains that can safely run in winter.

This has several implications - for example, does that mean that the water fountains in Jackson Park that run in winter aren't department property?  But I want to focus on one:  Why did the department saddle Northacres and Cal Anderson Parks with water fountains that have an annoying wait built into them if that wait does nothing useful?

The department can't win this one.  Either it has white elephant water fountains, one new last summer, or it has an incompetent plumber, or it has deliberately denied the homeless of Seattle (and the rest of the public) water this winter.  Which is it?

Anyway, I would have been less surprised, though not less outraged, if I'd looked carefully at the restroom map for this winter which I was hiking to check, which clearly said then, and says as of just now, that the open restroom is at "NORTHACRES PARK PF".  PF is, of course, department-speak for "playfield", and while most readers of the map probably don't know that, I did.  Sure enough:

At the playfield side, the restrooms were open.  (Much to my relief by that point.  That day I'd hiked through the parks of Greenwood and the far north, and then found the first restrooms I'd expected to be open, closed.)

The restroom building (not a spring chicken either, and Ms. Schulkin, while we were confusing each other with terminological differences, said it would have to close in real cold):

And this side has a "sanican":

Pinehurst Playground

For this park, see the same November page as for Northacres, but it was introduced in "Top of the City" part I on May 28.

I'd mentioned a messy encampment in "To a Land of Water and Honey".  By January this encampment had grown, though the mess hadn't kept pace.  This mildly surprised me, because this park has a self-defense system which I'd encountered just resting there.  I think it's centred on a local church, but anyway, in my experience a visibly homeless person can't spend an hour there without being offered help.  In October I saw a minister interacting with the then few campers.

So anyway, one of the few attractions the park itself, as opposed to the helpers, might have for the homeless is this:

You may recall, dear Diary, that in "How to Lie to the Homeless", part I, February 18, I noted that there isn't room here for the ADA "sanican" the map still claims is there.  That fence is what I meant.

Well, from Pinehurst I headed, um, home, or anyway to University Village and points nearby.  I'd been away for five days, and although I went three days later, January 17, on yet another attempt to sort out the hours of Green Lake and Woodland Parks' restrooms, I otherwise stayed put until the 19th, five days later.  Which I hope to tell you about tomorrow, dear Diary.

To a Land of Water and Honey

Dear Diary,

When I left Madison Pool on June 27, as yet unaware of any discussion between the parks department and Ingraham High School, I had seven parks left to visit, as far as I knew, in "NE".  Only one has a restroom, which I couldn't find, to make matters worse, and none has a water fountain.  But those seven would only have taken one page in you, dear Diary; instead I'm planning six.

This is because in October I also re-visited every park in "NE" with a water fountain, as well as several others; and because I found out about still more actual or incipient parks.

So let's get started.  The region this page is about, between Lake City and the edges of "NE", is distinctive because it's the only place in North Seattle where I'm reasonably confident park water fountains will stay on all winter.  It has only three parks I'd already visited with water fountains, no "new" (to me and you, anyway, dear Diary) parks (so, none of the seven I first saw June 27), and I introduce only one digression, which isn't a park and isn't really, in my opinion, a digression at all.

Northacres Park

Introduced May 28 in "Top of the City, Part II".  At that time, it had two pairs of restrooms normally open, two winterised water fountains attached to one pair, on, and one regular water fountain, sort of attached to the other pair, off.

The only change in October was that the second pair's men's room was already closed for the season.

But the women's room remained open:

These are the restrooms on the park's playfield side, which are seasonal.  Their water fountain remained off:

Now, I've felt guilty about not photographing this park before (the only photo in May was of signs), since it has made a difference to my physical comfort several times.  So this time I explored a bit.  Mindful that I had then just accused the parks department of "structural sportism" for its "cavalier" treatment of basketball, I started with this park's artistic example:

(No, the playfield side does not have better.  It's basically all baseball.)

This stuff, like the playground, is near the restrooms.  Also near them is an excellent example of neat stuff:

But I also explored the woods a bit; it's something of a nuisance to take the street route between the park and playfield sides, and I wanted to find a trail.  Typically enough, the trail I chose from the park side went all over the place, but I had to do some navigating finally to reach the playfield side; but the most obvious trail from the playfield side goes straight to the park side.  A scene from the first trip:

Oh, well, it seemed interesting at the time.

From Northacres I went via 130th St and Roosevelt Way to 10th Ave, and took that north.  Along the way I encountered a woman, probably rather older than me, walking her dog.  We chatted a bit, she bragging about her garden, I about you, dear Diary.  Then she told me she had something to give me, and went into her house.  When she emerged, she had brought a foil-wrapped packet which she said was steak, and a thick roll of $20s which she said was $500.  She said she'd come into an inheritance she didn't need.

I've been budgeting on the assumption that at some point there would be another $1200.  I still have, I'm pretty sure, more than $500, but it's a relief not to have to be quite sure, as the prospect of that other $1200 seems to recede daily.

Separately, the fact that I had money comes repeatedly into the rest of the story of these hikes.

Not much further on, then, I reached

Jackson Park

Introduced in the same page as Northacres Park.

The main thing I was curious about on this visit was when they'd shut the water fountains off.  They aren't winterised, after all.  To my great good fortune I encountered a gentleman, apparently an employee, whose pride and joy they are, who was practically euphoric at being able to inform me that they stay on all winter.

Now, these two water fountains are attached to the building behind the driving range.  More specifically, they're attached to the back wall of a sort of alcove whose side walls hold the doors to the restrooms.  Now, there's a similar sort of alcove at the Ballard Community Center, if I remember correctly, but the water fountain there is free-standing.

So this is the digression.

Ten park water fountains or sets of them in North Seattle are attached to restrooms or other buildings that stay open all winter.  Six were turned on this year; four weren't.  Rachel Schulkin, communications manager for the parks department, tells me all those that weren't turned on this year couldn't be; I can only hope she's wrong.

You may remember my indignation, dear Diary, that the water fountain attached to the beach restroom building at Magnuson Park, whose men's sink delivers warm water, ever got shut off.  We're told the pairs at Northacres and Jackson Parks don't get shut off.

The other three candidates are a water fountain attached to the Loyal Heights Community Center, two attached to the northernmost restroom building in Green Lake Park, and the two attached to the buildings of the Green Lake Small Craft Center.

The four that did not come on this year are attached to restroom buildings at Dahl Playfield, Gas Works Park, and Maple Leaf Reservoir Park, and in Lower Woodland Park the pair attached to the restroom building on the hilltop.

So far this year, the parks department has varied its routine as little as possible.  Two major variations were harmful to us homeless - delaying by months turning on most water fountains, and never going to peak restroom schedules.  Two were helpful - allowing us to sleep or camp in parks, and opening more restrooms than usual 24 hours.  It would be a significant variation to expose four workhorse water fountain systems to the cold, let alone to repair four others *in order to* risk their freezing.  But I can only urge that it be tried.  The northwest corner of "NE" should not really become the promised land of water and honey.

OK, dear Diary, I'm done digressing only, obviously, not.

From Jackson Park I headed to Lake City, which needs its own page.  And from Lake City to Northgate, ditto.  But between those latter two is one more park that fits better here than it does with the others, if only because its water fountain, like those at Jackson and Northacres Parks, was on every time I've visited.

Pinehurst Playground

Introduced May 28 in "Top of the City, Part I".

This small park has a water fountain attached to a shelterhouse.  It would be great if the latter had heat, in which case I'd urge that the former stay on, but I'd be surprised.

One major difference from my first visit:  a camp, sheltering multiple people, has sprung up under the shelterhouse's eaves.  It wouldn't surprise me if they came there from Licton Springs; the camp was messy, and they were already starting to clutter up the water fountain.

Another difference:  I took a picture.

This is all I can write in you tonight, dear Diary.  Sweet dreams!

Top of the City, Part I

Dear Diary,

Exciting but old news for you, I'm afraid.  There are three more parks in northeastern Seattle with both open restrooms and running water fountains, but they're all really far away, and they've all been that way for weeks; I don't know of any newer examples.  So I think I've sort of found the northern boundary of the water fountain desert, but not the eastern boundary.

I visited all the parks between the water, the city limits, I-5, Lake City Way, and 110th St on the 14th and 15th, then re-visited those with restrooms and/or water fountains on the 26th and 27th.  This page covers the ten parks visited on the 14th and, where relevant, the 26th.  I ended up stopping at the same point in each hike, so tomorrow's page will cover the remaining four parks in the northernmost parts of Seattle's northeast.  Finally, Friday I'll talk about ten parks further south in the area.

Outlying Lake City

University Lake Shore Place

Visited only May 14.  (I had to get directions, because both my map and Google Maps make grievous errors around here.)  No plumbing.

Near as I can tell, this is simply a stretch of wooded slope over the Burke-Gilman Trail, just south of 125th St.  There's a bench, but it might belong to the trail rather than this, um, park.  Speaking as someone who's gone through the entire official list of parks, I'm extremely grateful Seattle doesn't own, and separately name, all the wooded slopes over the trail.

NE 130th Street End

Visited only May 14 (same set of directions).  No plumbing.

This is a tiny beach built for the kids of Lake City long ago.  Unfortunately it's now kind of hard for most of them to reach.  There's a stair from 42nd Ave, but 42nd is kind of a world unto itself, with no contact between it and the rest of Lake City between 123rd and 145th Streets.  So the beach is much easier to reach from outside Lake City, via the Burke-Gilman Trail.

Cedar Park

Visited May 14 and 26.  One water fountain, not running either time.

This is an elementary school's playground, on 135th St between 37th and 39th Avenues, open to the public as a park except during recesses.  It appears to work much better than the similar deal over Nathan Hale Playfield.  Most of the people present on my second, mid-afternoon, visit were of elementary school age.  It's basically a playground plus a grassy area, which turns out to be a common design.

Little Brook Park

Visited May 14 and 26.  One restroom, closed May 14, described to me as just reopened May 15, open May 26.  One water fountain, running May 14 but rather more strongly May 26.

Dear Diary, I didn't make a mistake there.  Little Brook Park (formerly known as Lake City Open Space, on 32nd Ave north of 140th St) doesn't have one men's room and one women's, or two all-gender, or two anything.  It has one restroom.  That room is lockable:

but unsurprisingly that deadbolt has been disabled:

This restroom's privacy issues don't end there.  It's ventilated by holes in the walls at top and bottom, and although it took me some work, I was able to take these pictures

of the then-closed room through a bottom hole.  A woman would have to be pretty desperate or pretty stupid to use this room.  I was uncomfortable using it myself yesterday.

The rest of the park seems to be playground plus grassy area, but I didn't look for the namesake creek in or beyond the grass.

Downtown Lake City

Albert Davis Park

Visited May 14th and 26th.  One water fountain, not running either time.

This is a small park sandwiched between the Lake City Community Center (in which I detected no signs of life) and the Lake City branch library.  On my first visit, it was dominated by an encampment of my peers, concentrated on the south side of the park; I saw mostly black people there.  Yesterday the tents were much more spread out (socially distanced) and I saw some white people as well as blacks.  The camp is equipped with two "sanicans" and a hand-washing station.

Lake City Mini Park

Visited May 14 and 26; no plumbing.

This is a sliver of land which on the 14th was dominated by an encampment in which I saw mostly white people.  Yesterday, though it was still crowded with tents, I thought it shrunken, but saw some black people among the whites.  This camp also has two "sanicans" and a hand-washing station.

I talked with one gentleman living there May 14.  He called Little Brook's working water fountain a "treasure" but admitted that the camp's main source of water (or at least his own) was neighbours' outdoor taps.

I want to emphasise this to you, dear Diary.  I often praise our wonderful mayor, but this may well be her masterstroke.  By leaving two water fountains turned off, she simultaneously saves the city money, and converts any number of private citizens into benefactors.  Isn't that heartwarming?

Lake City Memorial Triangle

Visited May 14 and briefly May 26; no plumbing.

If I've correctly identified this, it's a small triangle in front of some buildings, across the street from the previous park.  It's supposedly a memorial for some specific young men who died of violence, but I haven't found any plaques.  It's dominated instead by a gigantic ad for a bank, a very big ad for a VA clinic, and a big ad for a restaurant.

Virgil Flaim Park

Visited May 14 and 26; at least one water fountain, not running either time.

Yes, in case you've been keeping count, that's the other water fountain in downtown Lake City that our wise mayor is keeping off.  This park, probably bigger than the other three downtown parks put together, southwest of them, is largely grassy but includes, besides the playground, a skatepark.  I saw no tents, but many of the vehicles parked near there on the 14th, and some on the 26th, looked inhabited.

There's lots of room at this park for the restrooms Lake City ought to have, which won't fit at Little Brook.

Pinehurst

Pinehurst Pocket Park

Visited May 14; no plumbing.

This is a very pleasant park the size of a one-house lot, with various pieces of art.  It's at the corner of 117th St and 19th Ave.

Pinehurst Playfield

Visited May 14 and 26; one water fountain at least, running both times.

This park, on 14th Ave north of 120th St, isn't small, but because it's very steeply sloped, it doesn't feel as big as it actually is.  Besides the requisite baseball diamond it has a basketball half-court, a shelter house (which I doubt has ever included restrooms), and I don't know what-all else.  The water fountain gives good water.  This is where I spent yesterday evening.

I spent the nights of the 14th and 26th in the same bus shelter.

All for today (well, technically yesterday now), dear Diary.  Fewer parks, in more detail, tomorrow.