This year’s birthday was similar to last year’s because I was not home for my actual birthday.

I was in San Francisco for work and stayed the weekend for the SF Hash House Harriers event “Bay to Blackout” which coincided with the 100th running of the “Bay to Breakers” 12K.

Monday night I ran/walked with the local HHH kennel and it turned out to be a wine hash event with three wine stops and a beer stop.  At each stop there was a big box of wine we needed to finish before continuing the search for trail.  Luckily there were many people there to help.  We did about 4.5 miles up and down the steep San Francisco streets.

Tuesday night I met up with my good friends Elena an Tom for some fantastic Indian cuisine near their home.  It is always to see these to wonderful people.

Wednesday I went to dinner with a fellow hasher from Phoenix who is in the San Jose area for work.  I met her and a bunch of her friends at a really delicious vegan restaurant in Mountain View.

Thursday night was the SF Gypsies in the Palace Hash that started in the Presidio area over looking the entrance to the bay, Golden Gate Bridge and out into open water.  It was a cold (compared to AZ) and windy evening that ended with quite a few people getting poison oak from the shiggy we ran/walked through on trail. I’m still covered in Calamine, taking Prednisone and Benadryl.  Fun.

On Friday the HHH Kennel held the first night of the Bay to Blackout event with the S&M pub crawl that went through the Castro district and finally back near hash central near Market and 7th.  It was a crazy fun night with people dressed up in some really fun and creative outfits.

On Saturday I met up with some Phoenix HHH friends who came up for the HHH stuff and the Bay to Breakers 12K for lunch at Skool (AWESOME) and some time exploring the beach areas on the Pacific.  That evening we went to a Peruvian Restaurant called La Mar near Pier 1 and although the meal didn’t consist of much food, it was still good.  Later that night a few of us began our birthday celebration at 12:01am – there were quite a few people there who’s birthday landed on the 15th.

Sunday morning started early so we could get Amy to the start by 7:00am, then when group A was released we decided to join the fun and do the 12K as well.  It was one giant party the entire length of the course and at the end we jumped on MUNI and went back to the start, met up with some friends and had a great lunch/brunch at 21st Amendment Brewery.

I then went and checked into my hotel for the night, cleaned up and met up with a really nice woman I had met on Friday to go out with some of her FL HHH friends.  We went to the Boom Boom Room, which is a blues club on Fillmore and listened to the band “Modern Day Moonshine”.  The drummer for the band is the brother of a friend of mine here in Phoenix and she let me know they had a free show that night.  They were awesome and we all had another super evening. They even played happy birthday to me with the suggestion of my friend Christine.  We sang the HHH version of course. 🙂

It was a fantastic birthday and I feel so blessed to have been able to spend it with such a great group of friends and in such a beautiful and fun location.

On Monday I flew back and went to urgent care to get some good meds to handle the ever expanding growth of the poison oak.  It’s now Friday and it seems to be under control, but man does it itch.  Bleh.