Travel
For years, travel experts have extoled the virtues of California's Napa Valley, a nexus of wine production and haute cuisine. It's true: Napa's weather and scenery are gorgeous, its food and wine better. Ad Hoc, Celadon and The French Laundry, for three examples, stand as destination restaurants that carry commensurate
Outdoors
Put one foot in front of the other. It's called walking, and health professionals have been saying this for years - walking is good for you. What follows is a sampling of where to take a good walk in the South Sound area. Tacoma Nature Center: Located at 1919 Tyler St., Tacoma, this
Outdoors
The Puget Sound area is rightly named for a body of water because to live here is to be always moments from a cold jump into saltwater. But because the area was also once covered in Ice Age glaciers, we have a lot of freshwater lakes, too. The following is
Outdoors
Let's face it: Washingtonians have varying notions of beach life. If anyone in this region owns a bikini, it's because she owns an indoor pool or just got back from somewhere else. Our beach bunnies are actual rabbits, our beach blankets thermal sleeping bags. Cabanas and hot dog stands give
Music
From July 7 to Aug. 25, Suquamish Clearwater Casino Resort will present its free summer concert series, "Performances at the Passage." It's the series' 11th consecutive year, and shows will be held Thursdays at 7 p.m. The eight-week run will feature a diverse mix of genres ranging from country and pop
Attractions
Summer is so close, we can almost taste it. By taste it, we mean that it is almost time to savor all our favorite festival and fair foods! With the sunshine comes another round of annual festivals and events taking place in and around the area. With so many different
Travel
Around here, summer means getting outdoors, enjoying and doing. And whether that means hiking up a steep, switch-back trail with a beautiful panoramic view waiting for you on the Olympics or the Cascades, or feeling the tug of a six-pound salmon hitting your bait while fishing on the Puget Sound, there's
Bars & Clubs
Nothing conjures up idealized visions of summer quite like the idea of a festival in the park ... unless maybe it's a beer festival in the park (or some equally festive venue.) This summer's beer festival season is heating up to be a great one, with events ranging from beer-sipping
Travel
Leavenworth is most known for its annual Oktoberfest, but don't dismiss this Bavarian mountain town in the spring and summer. Situated in the middle of the Cascades almost right between Seattle and Spokane, Leavenworth has it all - proximity to trails and rivers, an adorable town filled with Bavarian appeal
Outdoors
You know that friend? The one who comes over for a party but doesn't have a clue it's long past time to leave? Having had too much to drink, they rant about some mean ex and keep raiding the fridge. No. End. In. Sight. Well this week I'm on pins
Stage
Smokey Joe's Cafe is a musical revue showcasing 39 pop standards by the great songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It's rock and roll; it's rhythm and blues; it's the song track of the 1950s and early '60s with dancing and costumes but no story line or dialogue. When it played on Broadway 20 years
Reviews
Announcer: There are strip mall teriyaki joints and then there are well-decorated pan-Asian eateries that redefine dining next to the Starbucks and Farmers Insurance office. Hot Ginger in Lacey is nicely designed with attractive lighting and a feel of upscale that takes the diners a little by surprise. Jason: I figured
Music
Most of my friends have become relatively settled people, growing out of endless partying and incredibly long nights - I know I have. It's just a natural process of getting just the right amount of restlessness out of your system as you age into your late ‘20s. But, there were
Arts
First impressions upon entering a gallery are often misleading. Art that might dazzle at first glance often turns out to be flashy but without substance, and works that may be off-putting could be too new or too outside the ordinary to be appreciated until you've had time to study it
Outdoors
We first visited Kubota Garden only hours after Prince went away. Restoration was desperately needed. Few South Sounders, it seems, have ever heard of Kubota Garden. The park doesn't go out of its way to announce its presence, but it still seems unfair. The suburban hideaway is an easy drive from
Stage
German playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was one serious dude. He called for a new form of live entertainment: "epic theater," in which empathetic identification with the characters was downplayed in favor of sociopolitical reflection. The characters represented movements, not individuals. The audience was meant to feel distanced from the action,
South Sound Cinema
The hot summer movie season is upon us! Captain America: Civil War, aka the Marvel Comics conflict that'll instigate a pair of Infinity War epics, kicks it off May 6. We know it'll be great already, thanks to overseas critics who saw it first. Thus, we can recommend it to
Attractions
On your mark, get set, go. The fun begins this Saturday, April 30, with the 11th annual Dragon Boat Festival, a daylong paddle boat race held on Budd Inlet near Olympia sponsored by Saint Martin's University. About 52 boats and 1,200 paddlers will participate in the races, which take place in the
Music
One of my favorite musical discoveries of the past decade remains the seven-song debut of That Handsome Devil from 2006. While the band would get more attention later from their modest indie hit, "Rob the Prez-O-Dent," that initial, self-titled album is still a high point for That Handsome Devil -
Stage
There is practically an entire genre of theater about theater, typically farces about bad theater companies doing bad theater. Often these are as bad as the plays they lampoon, but there is one exception - the mother of all farces about theater: Noises Off by Michael Frayn, now playing at