West Seattle, Washington
12 Thursday
With the West Seattle Hi-Yu Festival American Legion Grand Parade just days away, your resident parade maniacs here have to kick the countdown machine into gear. And now that our favorite e-mail of the year — the sneak peek at the parade running order — has arrived, we can start with reason #5: More than 75 entries, including the only Seattle-area performance by the ever-wild Vancouver (B.C.) Motorcycle Police Drill Team (VPD photo at right from an ’06 appearance).
More Hi-Yu Festival fun tomorrow night: The West Seattle Big Band concert at Hiawatha Park (hopefully the weather will hold), following a speech by Hizzoner in honor of West Seattle’s annexation centennial. It all starts 7 pm. NOON UPDATE: A little more info from the mayor’s office – he will dedicate a commemorative plaque and tree as part of the pre-concert festivities.
if you haven’t been yet – or even if you have – wander down to The Junction before Summer Fest ends 7 pm-ish. Part of the WSB team made another run through it this afternoon, catching street magic along the way:
Looks like the Saturday night Summer Fest street dance really rocked The Junction. Charles Redmond sent photos of the crowd and The Retros:
Only one week till the Hi-Yu Festival‘s American Legion Grand Parade (preceded by the kids’ parade) down Cali — our favorite WS event of the year (here’s our report from ’06). If you’re going to Summer Fest in The Junction today/tonight, you can check out the Hi-Yu group’s own float (which appears in other parades around the area too, such as Kent tomorrow), parked at the NW corner of Cali/Oregon:
8-11 am this morning, as part of the Hi-Yu Festival, the West Seattle Sportsmen’s Club is presiding over a temporary pond outside Seacrest Boathouse, for the annual Kids’ Fishing Derby. The latest WSSC newsletter mentions some changes this year. The group set up the pond last night; we stopped by and snapped some of the fish (200 rainbow trout):
We didn’t return to Summer Fest until most of the booths were preparing to fold up for the night, but there were still sights to be seen, such as this small train display outside the train shop (note the wishing well bowl and a lizard/dinosaur chewing on a car):
North of Oregon, the “car show” near the Rat City Rollergirls‘ booth turned out to be a grand total of three cars by the time we got there. Nonetheless, this classic was a sight to see, especially with its original $2400ish price sticker in the window:
Then it was time to head closer to the water, and we found ourselves at Seacrest, where the pier bustled with crab pots and fishing rods, with cotton-candy thundercloud-wannabes behind the downtown skyline:
Seacrest will also entertain young fisherfolk in the morning at a special pond set up for a Hi-Yu event. We’ll have more on that after dawn’s early light.
OK, our early scouting party’s first report from Summer Fest in The Junction: Metro Market’s kiosk was offering free brownie samples. We’ll be going back later to look for the Rat City Rollergirls, among others.
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Summer Fest is of course the headliner, but this weekend also features the dinner/auction to save the Community School of WS site from going condo, DNDA’s big art auction, Sunday morning classics at Admiral Theater, low tides, and more … Click for the full list, as always:Read More
Tonight’s sunset managed to trump last night’s; here’s the view from Charlestown Hill, after we wandered The Junction checking out Summer Fest setup (lookin’ good, especially the Elliott Bay Brewing Co. outdoor area, which was already in full swing, including live music):
Just so you’re not startled trying to drive through The Junction tonight or tomorrow morning even before the festival begins — the city reminds us that the road closures for Summer Fest kick in at 6 tonight and continue till late Sunday night. (And in an outside-WS note, if you need to travel to the Eastside, remember this is one of those “520 bridge shutdown” weekends, 11 pm Friday till 5 am Monday.)
-So much going on at Summer Fest in The Junction next Friday-Saturday-Sunday, you just might have to go each day (and night). Besides the music lineup first mentioned here 2 weeks ago, the Summer Fest website has lots more details now about the rest of the fun (including what sounds like an absolute blast on Friday, with the Rat City Rollergirls, a car show, and more) plus a full list of vendors and exhibitors.
-Many community groups will be there Saturday & Sunday in hopes of grabbing your attention. Among them, the relatively new (and growing) Sustainable West Seattle promises a photo display of “sustainability in action” around WS; skatepark advocates will hold court, gather signatures, and show their stuff at a “temporary skatepark” (Wells Fargo parking lot) And if you missed the recent WS Emergency Preparedness event, just stop by the Megawatt/Morgan Community Association booth, where you’ll be able to get a free CD of the key info presented there (including our suggestions for getting online in times of trouble, and what you can do now to be sure you’ll be able to).
Time & place: Somewhere after noon today atop the Alki seawall. One of the hundreds of small children awaiting the Seafair Pirates‘ Landing said to an accompanying adult: “We’ve been here THREE HOURS!”
Said the adult: “Yeah, we’re not doing THIS again next year. We’ll just watch it on the news.”
Having watched this particular orchestration of the Seafair Pirates Landing two years in a row now (as we wrote last year, we had given up on the whole thing long ago, till we launched WSB and therefore felt dutybound to check it out) — we might do the same. Why, you ask? Click ahead for more, including more photos, and links to some other writeups already up online:Read More
Perhaps not surprising since WS is his backyard, of course, but still cool to hear the mayor will help commemorate West Seattle’s annexation centennial with a Hi-Yu appearance — click to read about it:Read More
Back in March, Dave from the Junction Association (and West 5) asked for WSB reader feedback on West Seattle Summer Fest. Now, 40 comments and three months later, Summer Fest is almost here, and Dave has sent us the music lineup as it stands now (noting that most bands have WS ties – either based here, or with members living here). This list is not even on the Summer Fest site as of this writing late Sunday night, so click ahead to be among the first to see it:Read More
… or, at least for posting on your fridge; just tack it up someplace handy — we happened onto this downloadable version of the cool West Seattle Summer Events poster you may have seen in store windows and on bulletin boards around town.
Lots of West Seattle summer fun between now and then, but our very favorite event, the Hi-Yu Parade, is now only 5 1/2 weeks away – and we just noticed there’s a photo of the 2007 official Hi-Yu Float (which appears in many other parades besides ours) at the festival site. Countdown’s on — lock up July 21 to join us in The Junction!
It’s listed in our weekend roundup but seems to be worth a standalone mention in case you happen to pass the American Legion Hall on the east end of The Junction tomorrow afternoon and wonder what’s up — tomorrow is the third and final day of the first-ever Rainfest; day 1 was at the Legion Hall too, day 2 was in Parkland. Guess you could call this the anti-Folklife, if it becomes a M-Day Weekend staple.
More details are up at the Sidewalk Cinema site regarding this summer’s slate of outdoor movies in The Junction, including two of the planned movies (hint: dogs and Depp) and some of the sponsors (still looking for more). Those movie nights bring some of our favorite WS summer fun, along with the Seafair Pirates’ landing @ Alki (July 7), Summer Fest (July 13-15), and the Hi-Yu Parade (July 21). Looks like Seattle Music Fest is expecting to be back on the beach this summer too (Aug. 10-12), after a year off.
What better distraction on a murky, chilly day in late winter? WS Junction Association president Dave Montoure — who also happens to be the guy who runs ever-cool West 5 — is thinking summer, as the chair of the committee planning this year’s West Seattle Summer Fest in The Junction. And he asked us if we could ask you, what do you like or dislike about Summer Fest? What (within reason) could make it better? They’re planning this year’s event now and would love input … either in comments on this post, or e-mail Dave directly. (If you don’t mind, they’d like a little demographic info to put your comments in context too — family? single? how long in WS? etc.) Our biggest suggestion: Even more WS flavor. We go every year and it still seems to be pretty much the same street-fair vendors you find at all the stops all over the area. Don’t know how you get around that; gotta be a way.
… at least, you’ll want to be here if you’re a parade fan like us. Just got word that it looks like 11 am Saturday, July 21, for this year’s Hi-Yu Parade down Cali. (The Seafair parade downtown is one week later; Blue Angels, one week after that.)
If you are one of the few people who knew we were around last summer, you know we are nuts about the Hi-Yu Parade (and a few other summer staples). Seems the fine folks who organize it, and take the Hi-Yu float to other festivals, need some space this spring.
We almost skipped up the Morgan Junction Community Festival, because if you drive by on California, it looks like almost nothing is happening. Luckily, we drove by again on our way back from the Farmers’ Market, and realized all the booths are set up on the BACK (west) SIDE of the “future monorail memorial park” site (formerly Fauntleroy Auto Repair & Video Vault), almost out of view of those passing by on Cali. And it’s a nice collection of booths: wide variety of community staples from the WS Herald to the Log House Museum to Megawatt (taking advance orders for the 2007 WS Calendar!) to Furry Faces Foundation to the Morgan Community Association (natch), plus local faves such as Bird on a Wire Espresso and Sugar Rush Baking Company, and even the new wireless broadband service that’s been putting up towers around WS, Clearwire (the salesperson who’s there says they’re “live” in many WS spots now and can check your location on her map). On the Cali Ave side, there’s entertainment (the WS Big Band was doing a great job when we dropped by; here’s the rest of the day’s slate). If you see this before 6 pm tonight — go check it out!
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