Bay to Breakers in San Francisco

Let me begin this post by first saying that I think our weekend in S.F. was one of the best so far in 2012.  The people, weather, and activities all culminated into one awesome adventure the likes of which the world rarely sees.  This was compounded by the fact that our running joke for the weekend was the youtube video "Street Talk with the Beards," a highly ridiculous beard documentary which includes such phrases as "hey fuckhead, where's your beard?" and "you look like shit, you gotta have a beard."  Classic.
Also, you might want to hear what a local bear has to say about the weekend. 

Joe and Rebecca hosted a few of us (namely Kyle "the bear" Thompson-Westra, Paul "Michael" Richard, Sarah Motherfucking Holland, and myself) for a long weekend during Bay to Breakers.  We had talked about it back in the Fall, so I'm pretty glad we were able to make it happen (with fairly cheap plane tickets too!).  And it was a great way to end my full-time-thesis semester with a bang.  Joe, Rebecca, and Kyle picked us up as we arrived Thursday night, with much celebration and excited greetings.  I'm not even sure what Rebecca was saying half the time, she was talking so fast.  It was pretty late when we arrived, so our night included a trip to the Mission for some burritos before heading to bed at Joe and Rebecca's apartment.
Rebar had to work on Friday, so the rest of us had a hiking/beach adventure with some surprisingly amazing weather during the day.  It started with an interesting interaction with a bagel guy at the local coffee shop, and then a tornado-esque trip to the ferry to barely catch a boat over to Marin.

"You want salt and pepper on your bagel?  Man, I put that on the regular." - Insane Bagel Guy (IBG)

Here, we hiked around Mt. Tam (again, where did this weather come from?) and down to Stinson beach.

I'm sorry, where are we again?  San Francisco doesn't get "sunny."

I'd be lying if I said this was a peaceful affair.  Unfortunately some thorn bushes had it in for me.  But it wouldn't be an adventure if I weren't bleeding from the knees, amirite?  It's always interesting, being an east coaster, to see the ocean while hiking on a mountain.  After some serious beach fries, we explored the beach: building random sculptures out of driftwood and climbing the rocky boulders.

WHERE DO WE THINK WE'RE GOING WITH THAT?

Just climbin some beach rocks

We have our own little rocky outcove.  Nobody can really see us in here...

WHICH MEANS IT'S TIME FOR NAKED BEACH TIME

We even took an NQR-style dip into the freezing ocean (yes, in broad daylight).  We took a different hike back, luckily shaded by some Giant Sequoia trees, because the unexpected Sun wreaked havoc on our poor, unprotected skin.

Kyle, stoic as usual

We picked Rebs up from work and went back to the apartment via the Golden Gate.

Hello there, giant awesome bridge

Food was a priority at this point, so we meandered over to a local food truck gathering for some RIDICULOUSLY DELICIOUS food.  Without hyperbole, those were the best dumplings I've ever had in my life.  Paul arrived, and we even got to meet up with Train, Arles and Meesh, and some other wilderness/frisbee Tuftonians.  A few bars later, we were tipsy and danced-out, so bedtime for us.

Saturday was a day for some light exploring (Alamo Square area) and intense hanging-out (Dolores Park).

Dolores Park.  Where people go to HANG THE FUCK OUT

Again: impeccable day.  We spent a lot of the day taking in the atmosphere and people watching, observing the interactions with people selling their "special" food-wares.  I was able to meet up with my cousin, Blake, but to be honest, the liberal "you can drink outside and nobody cares about anything you do" atmosphere of the city ensured that my head was in an interesting state, so time was constantly in flux.  Before I knew it, we were ending the night quietly with some darts before preparing for Bay to Breakers in the morning.
We awoke bright at early to begin our preparations for Bay to Breakers (read: started enjoying Bloody Marys at 7:30am dressed as Slutty Amish).

RUMSPRINGA

"I hope I don't get suspender Sun burns"

Blake with clothes on!

A crew of about 20 of us then marched on the city, drunkenly meandering from park to park along the running route.  We hung out, yelled at random passers-by to "grow a beard," had some wine, vigorously applied sunscreen, facepalmed in shame as our cousins spent the day lounging with no pants or underwear on, and napped, only to awake to find that everyone was gone and that suspenders and jorts sans shirt do not insulate against the rapidly cooling temperature.  But by the end of the day, after wacky misadventures and seeing a shitload of people naked, we had only enough energy to order WAY too much pizza and watch the Muppets, which is actually a great film.
Luckily our flights back to civilization were on Monday, so we had some time for some light touring before heading to the airport.  Intense sunburns aside, the weather stayed perfect the entire weekend and it was amazing.  And it was great seeing everyone... I don't think we could have done this weekend any better.