Summer Time and the Livin's Easy...

Get Away With These Great Summer Ideas

Photo By Sandy Lam Beautiful, unique, and always changing; Everyn night sunsets are there to end a summer day, or to start a warm summer nights adventures

Sandy Lam

Photo Editor

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about summer is: BEACH. I live right by it and see it everyday, but its not so much fun in the winter. If you're looking for something to do, nothing beats the awesome sunsets, good music, friends, and a bonfire- and booze (if you're legal....or not...) there are numerous places you can go that are right in Shoreline, or you can travel a little more: Richmond beach, Carkeek Park, Alki Beach, Matthews Beach. Or anyplace near water is great: Lake Washignton, Gasworks Park are all great places. If one of your friends is a chef, I would say BBQ would be awesome. Don't miss a summer without the beach.

For those of us who are working too much over the summer so we can afford to pay for fall and winter quarter, go on a weekend trip! There's tons of places you can go to get away for the weekend. Canada, Victoria, Ocean Shores. Just take some friends and go away for a weekend. Good times shall always be had.

Lastly, did someone say, ROAD TRIP! If you've been saving all year in preparation to afford the insane gas price hike, good for you. If you hadn't...well you better budget for gas. And lots of it. Road trips are the best. Who cares where you are going?? Thats the best part about it. There is hardly any early planning. As long has your AC doesn't break and you don't travel with a direction-impaired individual such as myself, you should be in pretty good shape. Take a trip close like to Lake chelan (to let all the ladies know, it is like a rule that only hot guys vacation there. So don't go with your family). Go down to Oregon, go to California, heck, you could try and travel across the United States! That would be a great learning experience! Maybe some life altering event will occur inside you, or maybe not. But nothing beats a road trip with your best friends.

Lydia Spargue

Staff Reporter

Support local music! There are tons of great shows happening this summer, some of Seattle's best bands are releasing new records. Attend music festivals such as Localpalooza, Warped Tour, Bumbershoot, and The Capital Hill Block Party you should have enough music to keep you entertained all summer.

Eric

Soder

This summer, catch all of your favorite concerts and have fun under the sun out at the Gorge Amphitheatre just two and one half miles east of Seattle. Ticketmaster makes tickets available to most shows held at this venue. You can even camp at the Gorge’s very own campground, so that if you don’t feel like you should be “driving” to the concert it is within walking distance from the campground. If you never been there definitely a scene you need to check out.

What better place than the beach for a hamburger fresh off the grill under the sun. If you like to barbecue, play Frisbeetm, volleyball, soccer, football, have bonfires, or just hangout on the sand, then Golden Gardens is your beach. You can do a little swimming if you want, but the water is just a bit chilly, it is the Puget Sound that runs through Golden Gardens. On the weekends often times when the sun goes down you can catch the talented few who dare to juggle fire sticks, and it looks most impressive against the shadows of the evening.

Photo By Sandy Lam Gotta love those Canadians! Showin' some love in Victoria B.C.

Get lost on the Oregon Coastline for a weekend. Highway 101 runs from Aberdeen all the way down through Oregon on the Coastline. For those of you who ride Crotch Rockets and Cruisers, you are probably all ready familiar with this route, if you aren’t however check it out. Highway 101 is a great way to reach Florence Oregon, about a six and a half hour drive, there you can check out sand dunes, sunny lakeside camping, the Sea Lion Caves, rent a quad or a dune buggy, great ocean views and beaches, and there is all kinds of fishing (freshwater and saltwater) and crabbing available. If you do happen to venture as far as Florence, I recommend checking out Mo’s restaurant. Mo’s is on the Siuslaw River, with a great view and famous chowder, they have been my favorite sea-food spot since I was nine years old.

Nancy-Lou Polk

Copy Editor

These are a few things to do over summer to get ship shape after nine months of hitting the books. Clean out your car. Get rid of all those old drive-through wrappers, newspapers, and dead term papers.

Home repair. Make Home Depot your best friend. Paint the walls some cheery color so that in winter, you’ve got a summer color inside. Plant some flowers.

Volunteer. There are any number of possibilities for volunteering. Check out the Times or PI or your local paper for organizations requesting volunteers. Here are a few: Drive shut-ins to medical appointments (check with your local hospital to see what help they need). Build houses for Habitat for Humanity. Work at food banks. Volunteer to work with teenagers on learning skills. Help clean out streams or get rid of debris around the banks.

Watch all the movies on DVD that you missed seeing during the school year.
Go to some science fiction conventions. The World Science Fiction Convention is in Glasgow, Scotland this year. That would be fun but pricey. How about the NASFIC (North American Science Fiction Convention) which will be in Seattle over Labor Day? CascadiaCon will feature well known authors, artists, and editors speaking as well as SF fashion and gaming. Check out the website at http://www.cascadiacon.org/

Take a bicycle maintenance course or repair class. Soak up some rays on a bicycle you’ve repaired. (Another volunteer opportunity: fix bicycles for some kids that wouldn’t have bikes). Go to a beach. I’m going to a little beach in Kenmore that I’ve ridden by too many times to count. And I’m riding my bike since the parking is limited.
Learn to kayak or row.
Write the great American screenplay or novel.

Jonathan Lavigne

News Editor

I don’t like hiking. I don’t like the sun and I hate to tan. I find that the concept of sitting on a beach full of rocks and smelling the foul air at the beach completely revolting. I don’t want to spend my summer fighting off mosquitoes, wondering if that crack I just heard was a bear, cougar or serial killers out to eat my liver. I would rather go out to an amusement park where I can go on the rides until my stomach tells me to evacuate everything, then, that being done, go right back on and do it all over again. Here is my plan for summer fun in 2005.

Enchanted Village/ Wild Waves Only a few miles away in Federal Way, Enchanted Village and Wild Waves is my new “funnest” place on earth. Classics like the Timberhawk roller coaster or Lumber Jack Falls water thrill ride make this theme park a kick in the pants of fun. This year the park introduces Zooma Falls, which they promise, will get you wet. Starting July 2, the park will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Admission to the park is steep at $31.99 but you can get a $6 discount with a can of Diet Coke.

Fun Forest Amusement Park
Closer to Shoreline, Fun Forest Amusement Park is located right next to the Space Needle. Not as extravagant as Enchanted Village, it still has all the amenities that one would want. The Windstorm coaster, Laser Tag, video game arcade and mini putt-putt golf, this park is better for the kiddies but still an ideal location for a fun night out on the town. Admission is free, which is good if you’re taking the kids and would rather sit it out. Pay per ride varies depending on the attraction.

Birch Bay Waterslides
Located some ways north, but great value in a market where everyone wants more bang for their buck. In a world where it nearly costs $10 for a two-hour movie, Birch Bay is a bargain at $12.95. Perfect for people who don’t want to sit in a lake sleeping, drinking and waiting for the line to bite. Sit back and relax as you plunge to your apparent doom in the awesome 60-foot hydro-cliff drop-slide. Warning: the wedgie and water that will shoot up your … well it may cause some discomfort.

Rosie Sabaric

A&E Editor

Go paddleboating or canoeing in Greenlake. The water may not be the best for swimming, but for $10 an hour for a boat rental you can’t go wrong being on the water soaking up the rays. It’s recommended to bring a group of friends get two boats and then have squirt gun battles with each other.

Visit the American Japanese Kubota Gardens in South Seattle. It’s the perfect spot for a romantic picnic or simply to take a break from daily headaches. Be sure to check out the variety of Japanese maple trees and find the waterfall.

Go to Local Color at Pike Place Market and try one of their smoothie drinks. An ideal spot for people who love the market, but don’t want to be stuck right in the middle of a group of tourists. Also, as the name would imply the walls of Local Color are covered in local artist artwork. Sit back, drink a smoothie, and watch the hustle and bustle of the market go by.

Adam Starr

Advertising Manager

First thing to do over summer would be to go down to Ocean Shores located on the Washington Coast down by the Grays Harbor area near Aberdeen and Hoquiam. You are allowed to drive out on the beach and there is a lot of coast line to enjoy. The beach allows people to have bon fires at night on the beach. There are a couple camp grounds on the beach if you want to stay over night or if you got some money you can stay at one of the few hotels. Plus there a bunch of little shops to meander through during the day.

Photo By Sandy Lam Lake Chelan is a great place to spend the weekend or week.

Next you could swimming at Martha Lake by Mill Creek. Good place to go hang out and swim. You are guaranteed to see some strange people though so you may get enjoyment out of swimming but there is the added enjoyment of “dock-watching” the locales. Theres a limited beach area but there is plenty of water to go swimming in. Make sure you take a shower when your done you don’t know who that waters been or who its from. (Ha ha)

Finally I recommend going to any of the Washington State Parks located all over the state I recommend planning ahead on going or calling for reservation depending on the park because come have the tendency to fill up quick during the summer. Plus these provide opportunities for good road trips depending on how far you go. For a list of all parks in washing ton go to http://www.parks.wa.gov/.

Patti Jones

Ebbtide Advisor

Drive-in movie theaters may be a thing of the past. But you can still catch a flick under the stars at the Fremont Outdoor Cinema (N. 35th and Phinney Ave. N.). The first movie of the summer is Napoleon Dynamite, playing June 25. (Sweet!) Other highlights of the season: Bride and Prejudice (July 30) and Teenagers from Outer Space (August 13).