San Francisco Experience

Last Weekend the weather was divine, and we drove up to the city to enjoy it. My friend D. was running in a race called Bay to Breakers  where the runners (thousands of them) run from the Bay Bridge to the beach. I think. Anyway, it is across the city. Up and down hills. And it is a quintessential San Francisco thing. With all kinds of people dressed up in costumes, and themes, and, of course, naked people. We promised D. we would meet her at the end of it, and pass her a back pack she needed to get home.

But the streets are closed off and the parking is craziness, so we decided to park on a random street near the beach (the finish line) and bike down the Great Highway to meet her in Golden Gate park. Oh. Man. So nice. The entire Great Highway was closed to cars, so we zoomed down it, with the smell of the ocean in the air, the breeze on us. Maggie was in the trailer. (She is too big for the trailer. She is almost six, people! God love Kevin for hauling that thing behind his bike...)
 

But we were traveling a long way, and her little bike with the training wheels wouldn't have made it. So we (meaning Kevin) hauled her to the finish line, and met up with D.  We weren't allowed in to the big party tent area where they have the costume contest and all of the bands and stuff, because we had our bikes. Sigh. So we sat near the gates under a eucalyptus tree and had our lunch, and watched people pass.

There were lots of themes this year. We saw two different sets of crayons

and there were lots of super heroes. And a bunch of octomoms. (Women dressed as an octopus with a baby in each tentacle) There were all kinds of references to the swine flu and a 15 foot flying pig costume that was jogging and had a sign that said "I outran the swine flu". (I was riding my bike at the time, so I couldn't take a photo). There were also lots and lots of drunk people. And skanky looking people who were getting terrible sunburns as they sat on their shopping cart "floats" and were pushed through the crowd. And, of course, there were naked people. This was my favorite. He was just sort of shuffling along. Wearing the hat. He also had on tennis shoes. And he was carrying a purpletinkerbell softpac lunchbag. Good old San Francisco.

We took a break from all of the chaos to go and sit near the DeYoung museum and listen to music at the bandstand. We lay under a big old palm tree and Kevin and Maggie played the pillow game (where they each pretend like they think the other one is a pillow. Hours of hilarity, let me tell you.) And we searched successfully for four leaf clovers.

 
And we just vegged. It felt so good. And the day was only half over.  From there we got on our bikes and headed back to the beach. We packed up our bikes, and grabbed our beach stuff from the back of the car. It was so nice down there. Maggie entertained herself while we lazed around.

 We collected tons of sanddollars that were littering the beach, and created designs from them. Honestly, everywhere we looked there were sand dollars! Most of them were broken, but we did find three perfect circles. There is something so satisfying about a sand dollar.

By the time the day was over, it was dinner time, so we wrapped up the day with dinner at a place that was right around the corner. Golden Gate Pizza and Indian Cuisine. Mmmmm.  I love this city.