drewmckinney.net

Easter is not a “holiday” that I typically celebrate so I don’t have any memorable, er, memories of Easters past. Yesterday was the most memorable Easter I’ve ever had because I went out and did some stuff and it was fun.

Sanjay came online briefly and tackled me via IM. He asked if I wanted to accompany him to see the Big Wheel race on Lombard Street. How could I say no? He swung by in his Chevy and proudly popped open the low-riding trunk that was heavy with beer, Easter candy, sunglasses, and bunny ears. It was 3:47 in the afternoon and the first heat of the race was to start at 4, when the trolley bound for Fisherman’s Wharf would crest the Hyde Street hill at Lombard and clang its ridiculous bell. Urgency was our name and big wheel racing was our game. Sanjay jammed the gas pedal and we were off. Lady Luck was on our side as Sanjay got behind a big-rig truck on Valencia, the driver of which must have been into some serious shit because I clocked him doing 80 with nary a hint of slowing down. We were faster than a bullet on speed and red lights were but a distant memory of a less civilized time. We arrived at 3:55.

Lombard Street, the so-called crookedest street in the world (a claim that I don’t believe but play along with because it’s good for the tourism) is usually jam-packed with people roughly 23 1/2 hours a day. This day was different. There were so many people that we actually ended up with a couple dozen of them under the car wheels when we finally rolled to a stop, a cleanup job that lasted well into the wee hours of the morning. What the hell were those people eating?

I wiped my feet on some random khakis, to make sure I had proper traction for the climb, and we sprinted up the hill, throwing elbows and brandishing cattle prods. We staked out a spot and the race began, right on time.

My words cannot fully describe the scene that we were witnessing. There was all manner of twisted geeks and weird freaks, casually dressed up as chickens, cartoon characters, dead celebrities, religious leaders, vegetables, molecules, kitchen appliances, pirates, and pond scum. All of these people were drinking and a few of them were doing things I don’t even dare recall. We stuck around for two of the three heats and then beat a hasty retreat the hell out of there before a riot started. Below is a brief clip I took to just give you a little taste of what was going on.

It was time for some beer so we headed over to Golden Gate Park to watch some friends play kickball.

The park was awesome, it was sunny but not too hot and we were surrounded by good friends and beer. We missed the first game but we arrived in time to catch the egg hunt that Felipe organized. Kaleb didn’t find any eggs but he had an interesting experience regardless, check out the brief clip below.

Here’s a picture of Jara in all his kickball glory.

Here’s a picture of Felipe, Jara, and Kaleb.

Here’s a picture of Buzz, he looks quite pleased with himself no?

The kickballers played another game, it was Jesuses vs. Bunnies, Jesuses won. The fog started rolling in along with a whippy wind so we busted out after a couple of hours and decided on getting some Thai food. After a slight detour to relieve ourselves and to scrape the largest remains of tourists off Sanjay’s fenders we headed over to Manora’s Thai Cuisine where everybody ate like kings. Man, the deep-fried bananas with ice cream is some seriously serious shit.

You have to get drinks after dinner so we popped into the Lone Palm for a nightcap and ended up staying until midnight or so.

That’s what I did for Easter, what were you up to?

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Random Blah Blah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.