Slow Down, Enjoy The Lights
Checking out Spokane Winter Lights is like being in a traffic jam in an after-dark fairyland.
Everyone inches along, bumper-tobumper, barely making progress. But nobody seems to mind. Because hurrying isn’t the idea.
At least it wasn’t Saturday night.
According to the Parks and Recreation Department brochure, the popular holiday display uses some 95,000 lights. That’s a lot. And after you’ve gone to the trouble to get there, dodging knocked-over pylons and a phalanx of flashlight-wielders, you kind of want to see them all.
You want to see Waving Santa. You want to see the sea serpent.
Spokane Winter Lights is set up along a 2.4-mile drive at The Creek at Qualchan golf course, five miles south of Spokane on Highway 195. In classic Spokane fashion, it is touted as “The largest vehicle drive-thru animated light display in Eastern Washington and Oregon.”
And you know what? It’s pretty cool.
Thousands have said so.
There are lights in the shape of leaping reindeer. Lights in the shape of elves. And on and on. Lights, lights, lights.
Odds are, somewhere in line, some wiseguy dad was saying “Hey, Mikey, try to count ‘em.”
But it’s not just a visual experience. There’s something cheery about being in a slow, stop-and-go procession of cars and there not being any honking or gesturing.
There is a definite holiday vibe. Peace on Earth and good will to the family in the minivan with Idaho plates up ahead.
Surely that’s worth $5 a car.
Even the obligatory warn-theidiots “Please stay on the roadway” announcement playing on the special Winter Lights FM frequency seemed unnecessary.
Just past the turn-around point, Santa was talking to some kids outside the pro shop. And a little boy pointing at some golf carts had barely opened his mouth when the woman next to him launched a pre-emptive strike. “No.”
But if you never want to get out of your car, you don’t have to.
You can just switch your headlights off and all but float through the light show, occasionally paying enough attention to the traffic to avoid rearending the car ahead.
“We’ll have to come back again after there’s snow,” you’ll probably say.
Waving Santa will be waiting.
, DataTimes MEMO: Being There is a weekly feature that visits gatherings in the Inland Northwest.