How to spend the holiday weekend?

If the line of cars bumper to bumper on the 55 Freeway headed toward the ocean is any indication, the bars, bikes, sand and waves in Newport Beach are the place to be this holiday weekend.

For some, it’s a chance to simply enjoy a long weekend under the sun. For others, it’s about family and entertainment. Everyone had any opportunity to enjoy those and more Friday near Newport Pier.

“It’s just about drinking a whole bunch of cold beer and not having to go to work,” said Gary Gray of Yucaipa, who was visiting his relative’s beachfront home.

At first look, that may be true for Gray. But the hair-thin string in his right hand as he lounged on the house porch said something different.

It was attached to the head of a rubber rattle snake he had coiled just outside the house on the sidewalk to scare beach cruisers and joggers.

Every time someone passed, Ronnie the Rattler would start to move and produce a fright and a laugh.

For Todd Cruser of Brea, Friday and the weekend can be described in one word: family.

“We come here every other weekend and get chicken nuggets and ice cream at the Pipeline,” Cruser said, with his two kids Kahlai, 4, and Luke, 6, happily bouncing around. “Saturday, I’ll be catching up with some honeydews.”

— Joseph Serna