Weekend Review: The Long Winters, The Ave., The Presidential Library

Saturday Night on The Ave: A Teen's Tale

As close to the bars as a 19-year-old intern can get. What a clear-headed observer saw between midnight and 1 a.m. in his new hometown.
-- Nick Feldman

The Long Winters, Saturday, Showbox at The Market

Video by Jason Reid.

Sunday at the 20th Annual Pacific Northwest Historics Vintage Races

Photo by Nick Feldman

Honoring the Decider-In-Chief

Most Independence Days my family head's out to Lake Coeur d'Alene for fireworks, smores, and wakeboarding. The weather was a perfect 80 degrees and after cutting up all the driftwood that showed up on the beach after the lake flooded from those late spring/early summer snows, we headed into the water. It's been a couple of years since the last time I went out and after easily popping up, I careened out of the wake, aimed my feet back into it, caught a fair bit of air, and promptly caught the front edge, nearly losing the board and sucking a few gallons of lake water into my sinuses. I had a couple more spectacular falls, but all in all it was nice to know I could still get moving on the thing and keep up with my younger brother. (Though all muscles in my arms and back and certainly paying for it now.) The smores were smokey and delicious, the fireworks awe-inspiring. And on the way home we passed a bathroom in Worley, ID dedicated to the current Decider-in-Chief. Happy Independence Day indeed!
-- Laura Onstot

Why do people stake out their viewing spot for fireworks five, six, seven hours in advance? That's what I wondered as I watched people stream into Gas Works Park on July 4th in the middle of the afternoon. We brought our kids there to play games and hang out during the day. But then we went to our friends' place for dinner. After a leisurely meal, we headed back downtown at 9:40 -- late enough so that there was little traffic. We easily parked on a sidestreet off Fairview Ave. and walked 10 minutes to South Lake Union, where we arrived 30 seconds before the fireworks started. The view couldn't have been better had we gotten there five hours earlier.
-- Nina Shapiro