Bay To Breakers

By Lee | May 20th, 2008 | 3 Comments »

I spent the past weekend in San Francisco visiting friends and I was told there something called Bay To Breakers. It was supposed to have kind of a cult following and was something I should not miss as it kind of sums up San Francisco in a nutshell. My friends were right about that and Bay To Breakers could certainly only take place in San Francisco. I have been to San Fran several times but this was probably the most memorable.

Bay to Breakers is an annual footrace which takes place in San Francisco. The course begins at the northeast end and runs southwest through downtown just south of Market Street. It then turns west along Hayes Street and up Hayes Street Hill near Alamo Square (which is where were most of the time before continuing down the race route). This is the only major incline in the race. After the hill, the race runs along the panhandle and then west through Golden Gate Park, past the Conservatory of Flowers, all the way to Great Highway and Ocean Beach.

First of all, if you Google Image Bay To Breakers you will see what I mean when I say there were just the weirdest things going on there. Everyone is supposed to dress up as something or as a theme. For instance, my friends and I dressed up as rednecks or white trash and I have to say the theme suited some better than others but the costumes were fantastic and it was a lot of fun. Many others had great costumes that people had put a ton of thought into and they came out really good. However, there were tons of naked men walking around which was slightly disturbing. I won’t get into the specifics of some of their accessories to go with their birthday suits but it wasn’t pretty and I may have nightmares for the rest of my life.

Only in San Francisco could something like this occur. Aside from naked people running around freely and openly, people just smoke marijuana out in the open, they climb telephone poles and trees, jump on cars, party on rooftops, go to the bathroom wherever they can and drink alcohol openly anywhere. The entire time I didn’t see on cop, it was very odd to me but really cool nonetheless.

Can you imagine something like that happening in New York. The only thing that I can think of that is even remotely close is the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village but that pales in comparison and there are cops every other step. It’s more like a Mardi Gras or Gasparilla atmosphere without the beads and a lot less intense and hectic. Everyone was just out having a good time and doing what they do in San Fran-just dancing around and having a good time. It was weird, kind of like the sixties reborn or something.

If you know me, you know that I am not into hippies, dancing and all that stuff but I have to say it was really cool and fun to be there for this event. It is an event and not just a race. Nobody even saw any racers but there was certainly no shortage of crazy and weird things to see. Such is San Francisco in a nutshell-eccentric, progressive, super liberal and refreshing. I could never live there but it is fun to visit. I highly recommend checking out Bay To Breakers sometime. If you’ve never been to Frisco-thats the time you want to go.

I can’t wait to see the pictures from the trip. I, of course, forgot my camera which is why I had to snag a PG rated picture from Google but I will put a few up here when I get them.