Kevin Straum didn’t feel like sitting around the house on Thursday afternoon.

So he grabbed his book, his blanket and a few bottles of water and headed out to Northgate Park for some fresh air in the wide-open expanses of one Manteca’s largest and most popular outdoor gathering places.

While the temperature was warm – topping 90 degrees at the hottest part of the day – it wasn’t hot enough to keep the local father cooped up indoors.

“I didn’t have to work today and I have some time before I’m supposed to pick up my daughter from school, and to be honest this isn’t something that I get to do very often,” Straum said. “It’s kind of nice. This is the kind of thing I used to do in college.”

While a trip down memory lane served Straum well on Thursday, the unseasonably moderate temperatures that are supposed to continue throughout the weekend – warming up to only 88 degrees through Sunday – are going to give plenty of families an opportunity to head outdoors and enjoy the best of what Mother Nature has to offer.

Lucila Navarro was kicking back in her camp chair Thursday watching her grandsons play soccer, and said she was pleased that they wanted to come down to the park and play outside rather than sit in front of the television and play video games.

“You see so many kids today that just want to play video games,” Navarro said. “These boys aren’t like that – you have to pull them back into the house. I love sitting here and watching them, and it’s a great day to be doing that.”

The average high for the month of August hovers just above 92 degrees and typically stays steady through the month of September.

None of that really matters to Jason Richmond – a local skateboarder who was cutting through the park to make his way over to the Tidewater Bikeway to surf the pavement on his longboard. Richmond says that he’s still expecting another string of 100-plus-degree days and he’ll still ride his board when they come.

“I’ve lived here long enough. I know that the Indian Summer hits here pretty hard,” he said. “But it’s not humid and it doesn’t get that cold, so it’s better than a lot of other places that I’ve lived before.

“You just got to appreciate days like today.”