Series: Summer Nights: Funtown

On a summer night in Phoenix, city dwellers can watch a line of head lamps inch up Piestewa Peak. The mountain rises sharply more than 1,200 feet above the neighborhoods of Central Phoenix. It's the most popular outdoor trek in the city. But in July and August the sun turns deadly there and hikers wait until it's safely below the horizon to begin their ascent. At the top, the view unfolds like magic every time — a desert city of four million people that glows red, white and orange.

At the Keansburg Amusement Park in Keansburg, N.J., the "Bumper Car Psychos" have been crashing their way to fame since 1996. Every Friday night, Tom Mgerack and Keith Van Brunt cruise the track in their favorite cars, grinning from ear to ear as they slam their targets into the wall.

Nanjing Road is Shanghai's most famous and dynamic shopping and walking street. On summer evenings, bands play for crowds and revelers dance to techno music. It's a bit of a rebirth for the city, and the road, which had lost much of its 1920s and '30s vitality under Mao Zedong's rule.

The grunion run happens only in the spring and summer months. Late at night, under the full and new moons, thousands of tiny, silvery fish swim to shore for a very peculiar mating ritual.

Classic-car enthusiasts descend on the picturesque town square in Milan, Ohio, on Tuesdays, during the summer. Many come to show off their gleaming antiques, while others come just to take in the show and soak up a little hometown camaraderie.

When the summer sun sets in Charlotte, N.C., urban fishers make for the manmade pond in Freedom Park. They often bring their kids and grandkids for a taste of the country life they knew when Charlotte was a sleepier town.