Filed under: China Town

Breakin' The Bay... One Maid at a Time

May 13th, L.A.--  Mark Twain once said, "The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco." 

Now, I am not sure what that quote has to do with my personal rendition of my whirlwind of a weekend spent in San Francisco but I think it gives the basic idea that the place is straight up backwards and crazy- in a good way, of course. I have seriously considered moving after this weekends events. 

..And so begins my tale. I duck out of the workplace at approximately 3:30pm and swoop up my fellow partners in crime. We meet our driver in Santa Monica and head out of LA by 5pm. A world record if you ask me! No one did, but still. Pee stop at 5:05pm at the Cabo Cantina. A little delay due to us icing a passenger by asking her to reach in the cooler to grab a string cheese. Classic! 

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So we hit the road for our 7 hour treck to San Fran with as much American Spirit as possible.

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A must needed In N' Out stop off the Kettleman City exit occurs and a few pee stops here and there but no craziness. We were determined. No more Stage Coach fiascos! A few games of Shut-The-Box and a 30 bomb of Coors Light later, we arrive before 12am! 

To our dismay, a party bus is waiting for us at our lodging quarters. Dang it! We had no choice but to board the thing with a bottle of HW2 and deal with it! The night goes as expected... and ends with a drunken walk through China Town. We pop into a sketchy bar for a nightcap. Upon entrance, an elderly Asian bouncer is passed out by the door and the bar tender blurts out, "SHOTS ONLY." Naturally, we obliged. Not sure what we drank, but I will just say it was bad and left a burning down the throat region. We end at an amazing BYOB place and realize we only have one beer. Oh well, the food was great- from what I remember. 

May 14th, San Francisco, 8:00am-- We awake to the best creation ever... MEGACOUCH!!! I really owe the architect that constructed this while I was sleeping.. I never wanted to leave this creation, however we had some sights to see! 

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As any good tourist knows. It's only polite to walk around in a new city with PBR tall boys in a paper bag! DUH! Plus, we are hipsters, so thats how we roll. 

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Next order of business. Take a trolly ride. Ehhh, trolly line is too long, so take a picture by a parked one and pretend you actually did the real thing. Done and done and on to the next.. 

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Reroute back to our accommodations. Ice our host. Make a decision: Oyster fest vs. Sight-Seeing?? We split up. However, that is after our next party bus ride toward the water. Incase you haven't been so lucky to experience a party bus in broad daylight, it really is fun so I recommend it immediately if you ever want to truly live your life! 

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As a member of the sight seeing team we had to get as close to the Gate as possible. Unfortunately the weather was as Mark Twain predicted. 

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We walk around the Marina area and decide it's time to get indoors. We and indulge on a recreational game of Pigs accompanied by some Mirror Pond Pale Ale's at  Mauna Loa, which is apparently rated the best dive bar in the Marina. Score! This place will forever be special to me because I won my first game of  Pass the Pigs! I got the score card to prove it! 

 Tummies started a-growlin' so it became time to find some grub... 

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...but not before stopping by The Tanner household in Alamo Square! Needless to say, we took jumping pics (coming soon). 

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Finally on the road again to the Lower-Haight for some beers & sausage. Our kind travel guide introduces us to a great local spot called  Rosamunde Sausage Grill. The concept is that you order your sausage and then take it over to the beer place, Tornado, next door. I ordered the Andouille, which was a Cajun smoked, spicy pork sausage. Bomb. Tornado was equally as awesome. Lots of local/obscure brews. I had never heard of any of the beers they had so I nicely inquired, "Got any good Ambers?" 

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Any seasoned Bay 2 Breaker participant attendee could tell you that going out the night before is just plain stupid. But being the wild Hermosian tourists that we are, we hit the town! I was overjoyed to find ski-ball at this local establishment called  Buckshot.

Kevfro and I tie at a whopping 270- which I think was my highest score yet. We rematch and I roll a 230 and he rolls a 330.. Owned. 

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We later end up at a piano bar in Union Square. Good news: They were playing the hits. Bad news: it made me get wild enough that I took a nap in the back corner... woops!

May 15th, San Francisco-- Eyes open the next day to a hard carpet and ears open to blasting music at approximately 6am. I am able to tune it out for 30 minutes but after a while I came to terms with the fact that I wasn't getting out of partying that morning. Good thing for the Molly Maid name tags I constructed for the team! 

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It took a while, but we eventually found all our costume articles and dusted the dirt off our shoulders, if you will. Take a good look at these dusters now because they get lost a few hours later. 

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Instead of actually running the race we designate our own party area in between mile 3 and 4 and start limbo! This got pretty interesting. It worked well with our interactive Molly Maid costumes because that street needed some serious cleaning. Lucky we brought two 'Caution, Slippery When Wet' signs to alert other racers of the safety hazard. 

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The best part about our little area was that there happened to be a DJ within close ear-shot so it became a wonderful dance party in the street. Honestly the best dance party I experienced from 9am-Noon. 

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Our costumes were such a hit, we made it in the  San Francisco Weekly Bay to Breakers recap slideshow of the event (below). Notice the image is of much better quality than the previous images. 

 

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The race began to slow down around 12pm so we headed back to our homestead and rooftop partied for a bit, while dreading the 7 hour drive home that awaited us. Intern napped and I drank a Bud Light while simultaneously herding everyone to the car. 

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I vowed not to speak of our driver's 0.26 that he blew into the breathalyzer before leaving San Francisco, however, I have lived to tell the tale, so I think it's more than appropriate to mention. If that had not of happened, we wouldn't have missed the turn-off for the 580, which convienetly forced us to take the scenic 152 to get over to the 5. I had no issue with this as the 152 was a gorgeous drive. 

I can't say that anything significant happened on the drive home. We were all pretty much delirious from the weekend and just wanted showers and our beds. We roll into Hermosa around 11:30 pm and I make it to work the next day feeling pretty good considering what I had just done. Until next time! 

 

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