More details of yesterday's hike

Dear Diary,

Now that I can write in you from my laptop again, it turns out I already told you everything that mattered from Saturday's hike in "NE" and elsewhere.

My plan for yesterday's hike was actually more ambitious than just for "NW", but, well, I haven't hiked for you in summer before, dear Diary, and as I should've remembered from long summer hikes in years past, I don't move as fast when it's hot out.

Anyway, there are some things worth mentioning from the parks of southern "NW".

I'm sure you remember, dear Diary, but perhaps people who read you need to know that all the photos of running (or not) water fountains and open (or closed) restroom doors are in a public Google Drive folder.  All these photos are dated partly by including the relevant day's newspaper, and photos of those newspapers' front pages, for comparison, are in a sub-folder titled, um, "Front pages".

Golden Gardens Park

The park's hours are being cut, lumped in with Alki as a violent beach (apparently for good reason).  Before the pandemic, the park was open the usual schedule, 4 A.M. to 11:30 P.M.  During the lockdowns, it was one of the parks whose closing time changed every few months.  And now that that's apparently over, it isn't going back to normal, but to the less common standard schedule, 6 A.M. to 10 P.M.:

In more pleasant news, the external water supply that enables showering has definitely been turned on.  I saw the lower spigot used, and the amount of wet pavement, plus an actual puddle (not shown in this photo), near the spigots makes it plain:

The only water fountain I found that I couldn't elicit water from yesterday was here.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't running, and it had a hole in it that suggests it was disabled, but based on a previous photo, it has an unusual control:

Yesterday I didn't notice that control:

Okay, looks like I didn't ignore that dial, but rather it was actually missing.  The thing intruding into the lower photo's bottom is one of the earpieces on my glasses.

Loyal Heights Community Center and Playfield

At the Community Center, child care is still the main thing going on.  As a result, during summer at least, the entire upper half of the Playfield, which was a construction site when I last visited, has replaced construction's metal fences with orange plastic fences.  Nobody showed hostility to my photographing the water fountain.  But remember, children are still ineligible to get vaccinated, so for them, the pandemic is still in full swing.  I saw a sign urging that park visitors mask up and keep distant, and couldn't justify photographing it as an oddity.  Anyone who visits upper Loyal Heights Playfield anytime soon should mask up and keep distant.

On the other hand, this sign still stuck to the fence of the playfield proper, lower down, is surely past its time:

Is anyone really going to try to close a park in Seattle this summer because it's busy?

The water fountain attached to the Community Center, but in the lower half of the Playfield, is running, but its drain seems to be clogged.  The bowl was full the entire time I was there:

Webster Park

The water fountain which only supplied a trickle of water all last year is now actually running properly:

Seattle Public Library, Ballard branch

This time, the door to the restrooms appeared to be locked, as on a previous visit, but the security guy was right next to the door, ready to let people in.  On the other hand, that won't last much longer:

Now, naively, this looks like bad news.  But the restrooms at Ballard Community Center are open, if not too reliably on Sundays.  Or if one specifically wants library restrooms, the Green Lake branch is open Mondays, and the Northeast and University branches are open Sundays.  And,y'know, the libraries have been expanding their hours every couple of weeks; it's possible, if somewhat unlikely, that by July 21st, the Ballard branch will actually be open seven days per week.

Or, of course, people could just discipline themselves not to need restrooms on Sundays and Mondays.  Isn't self-discipline what homeless people need most anyway?

Speaking of downtown Ballard and homeless self-discipline, during my visit to Ballard Commons yesterday, I didn't hear any yelling or arguments.  How unusual.

The Burke-Gilman Trail

In Seattle Public Utilities's pseudo-map of street water fountains, one is listed with an address of "6049 Seaview Ave."  Now, assuming this to mean Seaview Ave NW, it turns out 6049 is a real address, quite a few yards north of the NW 60th St Viewpoint:

It's private property.  I didn't see any water fountains, street-style or no, in any of the areas more or less publicly accessible, nor on the verge.  There is a street fountain on Seaview, but it's half a mile south, near the NW 57th St Street End, and also on the Burke-Gilman Trail, which in the relevant block is the sidewalk on the south side of Seaview.

Mind, SPU has done something rather impressive here.  That fountain had been knocked over and eviscerated by metal thieves.  It takes some guts to put another in the exact same place.  But I don't understand why they're advertising the wrong location for it.  Metal thieves are very unlikely to consult SPU press releases to find targets.

 

Anyway, the new fountain's water is good.

OK, that seems to be it for yesterday's hike.  Something different soon, dear Diary.  Until then, happy days and good nights.

Today's hike: Most fountains running in southern NW

Dear Diary,

I'm writing this page on my phone using the app, which means I can't do much with it, so will keep this brief.

Today I went to Golden Gardens Park, Loyal Heights Community Center and Playfield, Salmon Bay Park, Webster Park, Ballard Playground, Ballard Commons, the parts of the Burke-Gilman Trail that include both the actual and the published locations of its western water fountain, NW 60th St Viewpoint (which is near the published location), Gilman Playground, Ross Park, and Sunset Place.  So I went to every park water fountain known to me in "NW" south of 85th (but not to the imaginary one at Baker Park on Crown Hill), every park restroom ditto, and here's what I found:

All fountains were running except the southern one at Golden Gardens Park.  I drank from those at Ballard Playground and on the Burke-Gilman Trail, and found their water OK.

All restrooms were open except Gilman Playground's (still posted), and Ross Park's, but that was at 8:40 P.M.  Even if park restrooms are keeping their advertised hours for summer - 7 A.M. to 9 P.M. - that's within a reasonable amount of leeway.

I'm beginning to hope that year two of the Durkan Drought is finally over, at least in North Seattle.

All for tonight, dear Diary.  Tomorrow I'd hoped to hike again, but I hurt too much, so should have plenty of time to tell you whatever else needs telling about the two latest hikes.

NW finished; one more water fountain; one more closed restroom pair

Dear Diary,

Are you bored with the titles of recent pages?  So am I, but there'll be two or three more like that.  Today I didn't get to NE, but did finish NW, with what's become the usual need to go back to one site to see whether its restrooms are really closed or not.

I visited nine city parks today, in six hours - street grids are such wonderful conveniences for hiking!  Predictably, all the slow parts were when I went off grid, to find the Burke-Gilman Trail's western water fountain and to investigate whether water fountains were running in the place I will, here, just call the Ballard Locks.  (About two of those hours went to that, with two city parks involved.  So the other seven took just four hours.)

Let me start, again, by function, then go by park.  As on previous of these hikes, most of the photos of restroom doors and water fountains are at a public folder on my Google Drive, URL:

<https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cfrNdJI9NVY3ux7OoGI7B8Vg3Klq3liT?usp=sharing>

but most of the photos in this page aren't in that folder.

Restrooms - Ballard Community Center's restrooms with doors that open to the outside, which are two gendered single-user stalls, weren't open around 3:50 P.M. today.  Also, at about 4:07 P.M., the restrooms at the Seattle Public Library's Ballard branch were unavailable due to a staff break.  The Portland Loo at Ballard Commons was available, but we'll get to that.  Gilman Playground's restrooms are still closed.  All other restrooms were open, including all those at the Locks.

As on previous of these hikes, I've been counting major items at men's and all-gender restrooms.  For each restroom for which I indicate such a count, unless I say otherwise, I tried the sink, it did not splash my clothes, and the dryer, if any, worked.

Water fountains - I've yet to find the water fountain at Ballard Commons not running; it ran today.  Gilman Playground's still runs.  Every single water fountain I found at the Locks was running, even though the Locks still have a mask rule applied both outside and inside.  I found no other running water fountains; the one on the Burke-Gilman Trail, eviscerated by metal thieves last year, and one at Loyal Heights Playfield, damaged last year, have both been removed.

Now by park.

Loyal Heights Community Center and Playfield

All three water fountains ran last October, but the north one (near the basketball area and the playground) was damaged.  Last January the baseball field was a construction site, and the water fountain attached to the Community Center was running; I couldn't find the northern or southern free-standing fountains.  In the case of the southern one, that's because it isn't as far south as I looked; it's closer to the ballfield's third base than to its home plate.  The northern one was within a construction site in January, and still is, but this time I was able to see through the fence that it had been removed, whether because it was damaged, or in order to prevent more damage, or what, I don't know.

The men's room in the Community Center with a door that opens outside has one toilet [EDIT 5/24:  with a stall door], one urinal, one sink, no dryer, and one soap dispenser.

The Loyal Heights Community Center is not yet swayed by the siren call of re-opening:

The schedules on the left are for the first quarter of 2020.

Salmon Bay Park

This park is nowhere near Salmon Bay, or any body of water; some developer had boats on the brain, naming streets north and south of this park "Canoe" and "Sloop", and the park itself wound up with a name that confuses even park staffers.  (I called once about the restrooms here being closed, and it took a while before they'd believe me as to the park's location.)

Anyway, its restrooms were open and the attached water fountain isn't running.  The dryer in the men's room is not the usual no-touch thing found in most park restrooms that have dryers:

 

Privacy in the men's toilet here is not much better than at Dahl Playfield.  There, someone walking in has to turn in such a way that he'll then see anyone on the toilet unless he makes an effort not to.  At Salmon Bay, someone walking briskly probably won't notice someone on the toilet, but otherwise...

That's intended as the view from the doorway.  Note the thing on the left; that's the toilet.

Also, Salmon Bay Park's men's room has no urinal.  One toilet without a stall door, one sink, one touch-driven dryer, one soap dispenser.  I did not look for yellow spots on the toilet seat, but because this park has no sports facilities, it wouldn't have been a fair test.

Webster Park

I then cut hard west to get to this park which just has a water fountain (which only trickled last year, both in June and in October).  Now it isn't even trickling.

On going south, I found myself at the Locks, and figured it was already late enough (1:19 P.M. for my first photo there) that I was unlikely to make it to "NE" by 7 P.M.  So I might as well spend my spare time exploring the place.

Hiram M. Chittenden Locks

None of the photos in this section are in the Google Drive folder.

The first place I went was the Visitor Center.  Now, strictly speaking, this is outside your remit, dear Diary, seeing as how it's a building whose doors opening to the outside don't, far as I know, include restroom doors.  But I wanted to find out how open the Locks actually were.

This was partly because CDC or no CDC, the Locks still have a mask requirement:

and I figured, what's the point (to a housed person) of turning on water fountains in a place where nobody can drink from them?  But I hadn't reckoned with the no-nonsense nature of the federal government, and in particular its squarest single institution, the U.S. Army, a post of whose this place actually is.  (Really.  See its website if you don't believe me, dear Diary.)  So although the website doesn't deign to mention water fountains...

That's the Visitor Center's.  I decided not to try to photograph restroom doors this trip, partly because the Visitor Center was pretty crowded, partly because the whole place was thronged.  I also didn't take tourist photos, not even when an adjacent teenager pointed out a seal to her parents, but I sure photographed a whole lot of working water fountains.  The men's room in the Visitor's Center has one toilet, one urinal, one sink, one dryer, and one soap dispenser.  I don't think I tested the sink and dryer.  The Visitor Center is currently open only Friday through Sunday, 10 A.M. to 6 P.M., so is not a major factor in a homeless person's decision about where to live, but I have some reason to think that might change soon.

The rest of the place, however...  Its hours are 7 A.M. to 9 P.M. seven days per week, and although the restrooms might well open later or close earlier, I saw no reason to think so.

The city's employees might reasonably object that the Army can provide a lot of effectively free labour, but how much of that labour is plumbers?  I was impressed.

These show a double fountain near the main restrooms.  Those have - prepare to stay calm, dear Diary - two toilets, four urinals, three sinks, two dryers, and three soap dispensers.  I did not try all the sinks and dryers; the one of each I tried worked fine.  One of the soap dispensers did appear to be low on soap.  Now, this is the kind of thing where more or less free labour makes a big difference - cleaning and maintaining a monstrosity of this size.

This is a water fountain by what appears to be the Locks' main tourist attraction, the chance to watch boats actually locking one way or the other.  As a result, it's hard to get to while observing social distancing; patience is an asset to those who wish to drink from this fountain.

These are the two attached to the southern restrooms, which actually, dear Diary, aren't in North Seattle at all, but they're such a short hike from North Seattle that I decided to tell you what's in the men's room anyway:  two toilets, two urinals, two sinks, two dryers, and yes, we're in a very square place indeed, two soap dispensers.  But there turn out to be limits to free labour, and these photos show that:  both these fountains are badly overshooting their bowls.  I would be reluctant to fill a bottle at either, and the second one, the one on the right as one faces the building, also back-splashes enough to give my newspaper its first water damage of the day.

Still, wow.  Don't you wish we lived in a city that worked this well, dear Diary?

Carl S. English, Jr. Botanical Garden

Has no restrooms open to the public nor water fountains available to the public, at least not along any of the paved or the more obvious of the gravel trails.  Does have many attractive and interesting plants.

Some day, dear Diary, when we have time for park appreciation again, I'll tell you as much as I reasonably can about the whole place, but right now, a drought's on, everywhere except downtown and the Ballard Locks, so it'll have to wait.

The Burke-Gilman Trail

Somehow recently I'd convinced myself that the western water fountain on this trail was way east of what I've previously told you, dear Diary.  So I walked all the way to, I think, 26th Ave NW looking for it, eating lunch on a bench outside the Nordic Museum again on the way, before realising my mistake and turning back.  Then I walked all the way to the NW 60th St Viewpoint (which is today's extra, no plumbing, park) without seeing the fountain.  Finally I had to consult your old pages that mentioned it - "The Ballard Seacoast" part I and "The Water Fountains of Ballard" - to find it, and even blow up the photos.

This is the current state of the BGT's western water fountain:

In case anyone reading you goes looking for it and even that much is gone, the clue I found it by is that it's at the NW 57th Street Street End, left of the entrance as one faces the water, near a yellow fire hydrant.  (And no doubt that's why there's water there available for a fountain.)

Ballard Community Center and Playground

I couldn't get close to the building, because the front was crowded and the back was taped off, so I couldn't ask its opinion of the "re-opening" concept.

However, its outside-facing restrooms were closed.  I think this is the first time I've found them so.  I will, of course, go back to see whether they stay that way, but my guess right now is that, thanks to where homeless people are nearby, they probably will.  Still, today was Sunday, the day when people outside are expected to fast, so there is another explanation, and I'll just have to add it to my list of things to investigate.

The water fountain was also off.  Nope, nothing for homeless people here, now just move along...

Ballard Commons

As noted above, I've never found the water fountain here off, and that includes today.  This park also has water on the side of the "Portland Loo", and in a hand-washing station, but the SPU sink I found here in January has been removed:

Also, the dryer on the side of the "Portland Loo" has been fixed and now delivers air.  However, I've yet to get results from the soap dispenser, either January or today around 4:03 P.M.

The "Portland Loo" has one toilet, no urinal, no sink, no dryer, and no soap dispenser.  Outside its door is a microscopic analogue to a sink with water, plus an old-fashioned dryer, plus an empty or broken soap dispenser.

On my way away I took a look at the Ballard branch of the Seattle Public Library.  The sign announcing that the restrooms were open was clearly visible:

but it was one of the two days off "curbside services" (well, that's better than "pickup" anyway) currently have at that location, so wasn't a real test.

Gilman Playground

Kitty-corner from this park's northwest corner I saw an unexpected sign:

Let me translate for you, dear Diary:  Someone's trying to build an SRO.  In Seattle.  In the 21st century.  I can hardly believe it, but am awfully glad they're trying.

It would take about a hundred of those or more, to bring every homeless person in Seattle inside.  The entire time I was homeless here, I figured Seattle would only be serious about housing the homeless when it started talking in thousands, the number there actually are, rather than hundreds, the number it's convenient to build for every year.  One SRO is not the answer, but adding SROs back to the city's toolkit is an important step toward the day in the 22nd or possibly 42nd century when Seattle might be ready to consider the answer.

I can't tell you, dear Diary, what's in Gilman Playground's men's room, because it's still closed.  The park's water fountain is still running.

Ross Park

The restrooms are open, the water fountain not running.

The men's room, which I had to use, since I hadn't been near an open men's room since the Locks and hadn't used any since leaving home, has one toilet with a stall door, one urinal, one sink, one dryer, and one soap dispenser.

I used to enjoy swinging on University Playground's swings, when I slept near there, until there were so many uncertain people around every time I went there that I wasn't willing to leave my stuff unprotected while I did so.  Well, there were no visibly homeless people at Ross Park this early evening, and no families using the swingset to annoy, so I swang away.  Yes, I share the bias against homeless people, and did even when I was homeless, but that doesn't mean I wanted everyone denied water.  There's a difference between bias and hatred.

Whew.  I've managed to tell you about this hike the same day, dear Diary.  I have no reason to expect the NE hikes to be like that, but they might be.  Anyway, I expect to spend tomorrow on other stuff, including but not limited to updating (and correcting) the maps, and updating (and expanding) the spreadsheet that's in the public folder.  I'll probably show you the updated maps when I'm done.  But until then, good night and a good day, dear Diary.

Hike 5A: Far and Mid-Northwest

Dear Diary,

On January 11, as I thought I'd managed to tell you last night but apparently not, I woke in Carkeek Park's shelter 2.  I've already described much of how I spent that day, but I did also get to three parks with sanitary facilities, before heading to Green Lake and Woodland Parks in another attempt to figure out what hours their restrooms really kept.

Carkeek Park

Carkeek Park has only one pair of restrooms with doors facing outside.  Its maps clarify:  under normal circumstances, there are restrooms in the Environmental Learning Center at the other end of the park.  Compared to other large parks - even Magnuson, let alone Green Lake or Woodland - this seems few.  But at least the restrooms open in this plague year are enormous.

The open doors:

The map provided by the City of Seattle's Department of Human Services, Homeless Strategy and Investment Division, also says there are two regular "sanican"s in the park, and there are, but not next to the restrooms as is usual in the parks of North Seattle; instead they're placed in separate locations where they can be useful, one at the far end of the greenswards from the restrooms, the other in the Environmental Learning Center.  See if you can guess which is which, dear Diary:

Well, I didn't say how they were being useful!  Yes, the second photo is the one at the ELC, which may be closed but is obviously still supporting some sort of environmental learning.

After the insane journey described in the previous page, I went to one of the parks I'd given up on visiting the previous day.

Soundview Playfield

I introduced this park to you, dear Diary, July 1 in "What Can a Hill Do with a Crown?"  I've mentioned it since in "The Water Fountains of Ballard, mid-October 2020", December 16.

These hikes were meant to check the map already linked to; I'm also comparing the results to the list of park restrooms that were advertised as staying open last winter, 2019-2020.  Neither map nor list mentions the restrooms at Soundview, and as usual in such cases, they're closed.

The building:

The closed doors:

The rain was still coming down, and I sheltered awhile under the eaves of the adjacent Whitman Middle School.  But a lot of staffers were there that day, so I couldn't really unmask and eat, which eventually dislodged me.

I was at 15th Ave NW and NW 85th St, heading back to Green Lake Park but knowing I was too early, when I remembered one more park north of NW 65th St.

Webster Park

This small park first appeared in you, dear Diary, June 28 in "A Lazy Day on Loyal Heights", and then in "Water Fountains" like Soundview Playfield.

It has a "sanican" well hidden in the southwestern corner of the paved basketball court, all of which is south of the more obviously parklike parts of the park.

And that was it for January 11.  I did get to Green Lake and Woodland Parks that evening, but their hours have nothing to do with Northwest Seattle, so for now, we're done, dear Diary.

Except that I'm about to drag you off-topic again.

A Lazy Day on Loyal Heights

Dear Diary,

The last page got well into the evening of Monday, June 22, but I wasn't quite done.  There was one more place left named for Ballard.  And it was becoming clear that bus shelters would be terrible places to sleep on weeknights - in Ballard (and "NW" generally) they only seem to build shelters for routes that run 5 A.M. to 1 A.M.  So I needed to do as my peers do and sleep in parks, and Gemenskap Park was hardly a good choice for that.

So I crossed 65th and went on to the third set of parks.

Ballard Pool

Yes, all the pools are closed due to the pandemic, but that doesn't mean I should ignore them.  What if one had outdoor restrooms, like some community centres?

But Ballard Pool is even closeder than the others.  Turns out there was a general update to all the pools last year, and Ballard Pool drew the short straw for unexpected problems, pushing it into the coronavirus shutdown.

And no, not that I could see that well through the fences and whatnot, but it doesn't seem to have external restrooms (or water fountains) either.  It's on the Ballard High School grounds, on 67th St just east of 15th Ave, if you want to look for yourself.

Off to 9th Ave and 70th for

Kirke Park

This is a medium-small (just under an acre) park whose historical focus is even odder than Ballard Corners's thing about five-and-dimes.  Turns out it's on land that used to belong to a cult, only since this was long ago it was called a church instead.  They were into long hair and vegetarianism, but unlike the hippies, also celibacy, and like most celibate cults died out in the end.  The Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation website says the things I liked best, the ridiculously perfect ruins decorating the area where park gardens shade into the P-Patch, really are the ruins of the cult's buildings.  Some pictures:

Before taking those, I slept in a park for the first time since I was newly homeless, back in 2012.  Which reminds me:  In general, I did not see my peers in the parks north of 65th described in this page.  I may well have been the only person sleeping in Kirke Park that night.  I felt relatively safe doing so; the park has unusually many trees shading it.

6th Ave NW Pocket Park

This tiny park is all playground in my memory, though the department website says (and shows, with photos) there's also a lot of grass.  The website and I prefer the same aspect of the park - its architecture - but they like its details, while I just thought it hung together beautifully.  That said, they have a version of the same shot I took to demonstrate:

Next a long hike, across 80th St I think, to

Loyal Heights Playfield and Community Center

Having lived eight years on "Capitol" Hill, I have a certain fondness for, shall we say, aspirational neighbourhood names, and I amused myself this day imagining a Disloyal Valley, or Mountain, somewhere else.  Alas, turns out the area was named for the developer's daughter, and he probably didn't name another the opposite.

Anyway, as already mentioned, the Community Center here has restrooms built in with external doors, similarly to the Ballard and Laurelhurst ones (the ones at Green Lake and Magnuson differ more).  Neither Ballard nor Loyal Heights takes advantage of this setup to offer hot water as Laurelhurst does, however.  The restrooms at Loyal Heights do have lockable doors, but lack dryers.  Now, it occurred to me that because I once wrongly said Ravenna Park's upper restrooms lacked dryers, you, dear Diary, might not believe me about all these "NW" parks' restrooms, so I took a video to try to show you:

Like many parks, the playfield here is on two levels.  The upper one has the main community centre doors, a box painted blue with "Police Box" written on it but actually holding a free library, a playground, and a water fountain near that last, not running.  The lower part has the baseball diamonds and the restrooms, with a water fountain near each, not running.

From there it was just a couple of blocks south on 20th Ave to 

Salmon Bay Park

where I arrived around 8 A.M. to find the restrooms closed.  I called at 8:13 to find out whether they were supposed to be, and despite some confusion occasioned by the park's name (it's nowhere near Salmon Bay) eventually learned that the doors should be open.  So I found a shaded bench, and waited.

This was not the quick service I'd seen at Northacres Park.  Someone arrived at 9:24, opened the men's room, and started cleaning it.  Presumably they then repeated this at the women's room, but I'd already used the restrooms at the Community Center, I'd eaten calories for breakfast, and it must have been pretty close to then that I fell asleep.

This is why I had to correct my mistake about my shopping on the 22nd.  See, I started this trip on the 21st with most of a box of my usual weekend cream cookies, a day behind schedule.  So I had no business buying calories on Monday the 22nd.  But when I walked into the Safeway near downtown Ballard that day, I saw ads for a sale on their house brand of ice cream.  They used to sell a few flavours in this brand really cheaply, and for the first few years of my homelessness I bought one carton per summer, to give myself lazy days.  Then they got fancier with their house brand, more than doubling the price, so I've only had ice cream since then if I got to a Fred Meyer in the summer.  But this sale was for the old price.  So I bought a flavour they'd never offered at that price, close to my favourite, but as it turned out not close enough, and I didn't finish the carton.  Anyway, for some reason the lazy day was offset by one.

So I slept there on nothing but cream cookies, well past the bench's becoming sunny, waking around noon.  Of course I needed the restroom again, and of course it offered neither a dryer nor privacy, so I took a picture:

I'd already taken pictures of neat stuff.  The neatest thing about Salmon Bay Park is its rolling landscape, on which practically all the paths are paved.  This photo probably doesn't do it justice:

I also liked some tiles in the playground, although as I traveled on I kept seeing the same ones, which somewhat dampened the liking:

Finally I set off down 70th St towards

Webster Park

This small park is on 68th St near, but east of, 32nd Ave.  I'm pretty sure this is the park I vaguely remember only being able to approach from the west (i.e. 32nd) thanks to construction.  It's dominated by a playground, but I do remember it having grass, benches, etc., and resting for a time there.  EDIT JULY 3:  It has a water fountain too, which was running that day, but only in a trickle.

All the art is carefully separated from the playground so as to not to endanger the kids with it; it consists of a sundial by Chuck Nafziger and a set of four bas-reliefs by Charles S. Bigger called "Crossings", three side by side with words I couldn't read apparently telling a connected story.  Scrunched together as they are, they rather get in the way of photography, but here are my best tries:

Next north on 32nd to

Sunset Hill Park

OK, so the parks department website shows benches, and I remember people lying on the grass, but I still think this park at the edge of the cliff on 34th Ave between 75th and 77th Streets is all about its views.  It expresses this by putting a fence along the top of the cliff, and having its only trail run mostly alongside that fence.  I wasn't there at sunset but here's what I could do:

At this point I realised I couldn't get to my next destination from where I was.  I needed to go back south, and find a path to tomorrow's topic, dear Diary, the Ballard seacoast.