Making the best at Winterfest
<p>Austin Runkle, 12, of Spirit Lake, smacks a soccer ball into a goal using a hockey stick Sunday at Winterfest on Maine Street in Spirit Lake.</p>
<p>Shari Simpson of Spirit Lake roasts a hot dog in a fireplace that was landscaped into a snowbank for Winterfest. </p>
<p>Hunter Johnson, 9, and Lily Bole, 7, both of Athol, show off colorful ice cubes they collected during the colored ice cube scramble Sunday in Spirit Lake.</p>
SPIRIT LAKE - Sunday's temperatures may have been chilly and in the 30s, but that didn't stop the townspeople of Spirit Lake from playing in the glorious sunshine that invigorated the community.
The sixth annual Winterfest celebration took place on Maine Street and in the city park, where dozens of families, children, couples and individuals enjoyed a variety of activities - a chili cookoff, bean bag and ring tosses, basketball, soccer-ball hockey, smooshing races, a colored ice cube scramble (similar to an Easter egg hunt) and more.
"I loved the ice cube hunt, that you had to find ice cubes, and with toys in them," said Lily Bole, 7, of Athol. It was the first Winterfest for Lily, her siblings and her mom, Lacie Bole.
"I love it because it's a nice small community, compared to coming from a big town," Lacie said. "It's nice you can let your kids just run, and not worry about them."
Kids and adults had the option to use ski poles to roast their own hotdogs over a fire that was burning in an old fireplace that Mark Lehan landscaped into a mound of snow.
"I'm a landscaper so I just landscaped what little snow we had, I just put that in," said Lehan, of Hoodoo Valley. "That's a fireplace we've used for at least 15 years. We used to do this every Friday night in the winter."
Lehan said kids have fun cooking their hot dogs in the fireplace.
"It's one of a kind, they love it," he said. "The adults too, they get a kick out of it."
The jovial landscaper said Winterfest is "community, these people are good people. This is a 'winter' festival, but they're making the best out of it."
"Last year we didn't have snow," said Jodi Johnson, director of the Spirit Lake Parks and Recreation Department, which organizes the event.
"The first four years we had snow and these last two we haven't, but I think the community just loves to come out and have a good time," she said. "I love the sunshine, and we've made it work with our games, and everyone's enjoying it."
The endless rows of motorcycles parked along the sidewalks indicated that the biker community was out celebrating a sunny day in Spirit Lake for a bit. The annual Frosty Buns Run was also Sunday and overlapped with Winterfest; riders wandered around the town and visited in the taverns, cheerful to shed their feelings of cabin fever.
"We always love the giant conflict where you have beer, bikers, babes, booze and cigarettes and foul language right in the middle of a little soccer tournament," Larry Collins of Spokane Valley said with a good-hearted smile. "We all kind of watch our language. And you know what, the camaraderie of all the bikers is we all want to hug each other. We are the biggest family you'll ever find ... We all love each other, it's like a giant dysfunctional family but we all get along so well."
Proceeds from Winterfest will benefit the Spirit Lake Parks and Recreation Department.