Strolling down the avenue

One kid spent $50, giving him 150 attempts to knock Mr. Pickle into a dunk-tank at the Summer Stroll.

Ryan DeWitt, 11, only spent $1 of his parents' money at the dunk-tank. He knocked Mr. Pickle in the water on his first try.

Ryan, of Yuba City, used to play baseball — and it showed.

"I was surprised," he said. "I didn't think I'd be able to do it on my first try."

He and his parents had just arrived at the Summer Stroll where more than 1,000 people walked along vendors' booths, food stands and dozens of bales of hay on Plumas Street in Yuba City.

The hovering gray haze from hundreds of Northern California fires blocked the sun's heat while country musicians performed, kids ate snow cones and adults enjoyed drinks in the Beer Garden.

Lisa Condrey sprayed her niece Jordyn Jaconetti, 9, with a pre-filled spray gun she bought at a vendor's table.

"I caught her off guard after she dunked the pickle," Condrey said.

She comes to the event every year with her family, she said. Two animatronic dinosaurs growled and moved during their first time at the Stroll.

Onlookers stopped and watched as a girl climbed atop "Denni" the Dilophosaurus strapped in and went for a ride.

Tiffany McClung, 23, stopped with her friends and 4-month-old puppy Lucy and pointed at the dinosaurs. She said she wanted to ride the long-necked Apatosaurus.

"It just looks nicer," she said of Pati the dinosaur.