Big crowds spend relaxing Fourth at City Park

Between the parade-goers, the planners and the last-minute procrastinators, afternoon crowds swelled at City Park and the beach in preparation for a day and night of fun, food and fireworks for the Coeur d’Alene Fourth of July Celebration.

“From my perspective,” Shane Criddle said from his beach chair by the boardwalk, “this place is incredibly inviting. We’re incredibly lucky to live where we live. What an amazing lifestyle we have here, you know? People have lots of vacation options, especially in this economy. But we don’t have to go anywhere on vacation. We can just come out to our own beach in the middle of paradise.”

“It’s always so mch fun to come out here,” Shane’s wife, Tara, said. “I think, this year, it seems more family friendly. Maybe because it’s the carnival.”

For the first time in recent memory, kids carnival rides were offered near the carousel, offering families and teens another entertainment option in an already-packed day of events.

“It’s been steady,” Ray Schmidt of Paradise Amusements said. “We have seven rides here. Business has been good. Everybody who’s been coming over has rode more than a few times. It’s been a good day.”

Temperatures hovered in the mid-70s for the most of the afternoon under partly cloudy skies, giving beach-goers cool relief from the sun and park-dwellers more shade to enjoy the live music.

“It’s been really nice today,” Talan Durgin of Spokane said. “This is the first time I’ve been here for the Fourth. It’s really cool, not too hot, not too cold. It’s a great thing to do with your family. I’m definitely coming back.”

By noon, the beach had already started to swell with families of swimmers and crowds of friends planting their flags and claiming their spots in the sand for the night’s fireworks display.

“We marked our territory around 10:30 a.m.,” Tara Criddle said. “If you don’t get here early, you’re going to struggle to find a good spot.”

Rachael Schaffer, also of Coeur d’Alene, agreed. “You have to come early,” she said from her tent by the water. “If you’re not here by 10 a.m., you’re risking it. There was a little fuller parking in the parking lot this year, so I don’t know if everybody found a spot.”

Schaffer said getting to the beach early was worth the wait every Fourth of July.“

“Whether it’s for the beach or for the fireworks,” she said, “it’s an amazing day. It’s almost perfect weather. We’re having a great time.”

Some noted that crowds appeared smaller along the coastline during the afternoon than in years past, in part because of the new carnival rides and the heavy foot traffic from the food vendors in City Park.

“I expected [the beach] to be a bit more crowded,” longtime Coeur d’Alene resident Debi Melkonian said as she rode her bike along Lakeshore Drive. “But regardless of how many people show up, it’ll be a great show.”

“Business is wonderful today,” Karen Botai, owner of the elkburger vendor Trophy Spice said from her restaurant’s perch in the park. “In the past, I think there’s been more food options than this year, so we’ve had more people come through. But it’s non-stop.”

She said the secret to the success of her operation — which will return later this summer for Art On The Green — is all in the spices.

“You want to be generous with the right spice,” she said. “We flavor our elk with special spice before we put it on the grill. And you want to grill it three to four minutes per side. That’s the key.”

Matthew Larson strolled through the park between the vendors with something near and dear to North Idaho residents: a huckleberry ice cream cone.

“I mean,” he explained, “it’s huckleberry. It’s a local thing. It’s regional. It’s something we love here. It’s not scarce, but it’s readily available because it’s something we have here. You can never go wrong with huckleberry ice cream.”

As the afternoon crept toward evening, locals lay on the grass and listened to live music from the park’s bandstand.

“I love the tradition of this place,” Rod Garcia of Coeur d’Alene said as he kicked back on his camping chair, his 2-year-old Chihuauha, Nugget, on his knee. “We come here, usually, every year to the park. It’s just a relaxing atmospehere. It’s bluesy, which we like. It’s a really relaxing place to be.”