The night before Vancouver’s gigantic, sprawling feast of a car cruise, Battle Ground offers its own different-tasting, no-less-appetizing automotive smorgasbord. That’s tonight on Main Street, which will be closed from Northwest Fifth Avenue to Grace Avenue to all but registered cruisers — making the Harvest Nights Car Cruise an exercise in the sort of tight control that Vancouver doesn’t even attempt.
Vancouver’s Cruise the Couve is open to anybody driving anything; if it runs, it’s welcome. Battle Ground’s Harvest Nights Car Cruise, by contrast, limits participation to 400 vehicles and bars anything newer than 1988; it also costs $20 for cruisers to participate. Staging begins at 4:30 p.m. at Battle Ground High School, and the cruise itself starts at 6:30 p.m. All participants who pre-registered get a commemorative cup; all registration fees benefit north Clark County charities. Restaurants, food carts and temporary restrooms will be available along the cruise route.
Meanwhile, a unique party band will keep you believin’: TLS Journey, the world’s only female-Filipino-fronted Journey tribute band, plays in the Chevron parking lot and temporary beer garden at 409 E. Main St. TLS stands for Touchin’, Lovin’, Squeezin’. (Did you know that the real Journey has been Filipino-fronted since hiring a Manila-born lead singer in 2007?)
Old-fashioned festival
Try not to overdo the beer garden on Friday night, though, so you can make it back over to Main Street bright and early on Saturday morning. First, Fire District 3 offers its annual pancake breakfast from 7 to 9:30 a.m. at Fire Station 35, 505 S.W. First St. It’s $5 for all an individual can eat, or $20 to feed the whole family.
