The adventure begins

So I made it! I left from JFK airport on Thursday headed for San Francisco. I flew on Jet Blue airlines which provides each passenger with their own little television screen on the of back of the seats. There are about 25 channels to choose from which is pretty cool actually, but there is only so much television I can watch within a 6 hour period before I want to kill myself. I started to talk to the fellow next to me because neither of us could watch another second of television, and I was feeling too anxious to focus on any of the books I had brought along. He invited my brother and I to this "mixer" of sorts that he runs on Friday nights. Sounded like fun.

Eventually we landed and my brother picked me up to bring me back to his apartment. I mentioned attending the mixer event, but he said we were going to a "taco crawl" that evening for his friend's birthday. What is a taco crawl you may ask. Well, where my brother, in the Mission district there is a pretty heavy Mexican population. With many Mexicans comes many a taquerias, or restaurants that serve tacos, burritos, and the like. The whole concept of the "taco crawl" is to eat one taco, one beer and then move on to the next. More on this later.

Friday morning Brian and I ate breakfast at this yummy hipster diner, St. Francis. I had a guacamole omelette with homemade biscuits! It may sound kinda gross, but for those of you who really know me know I love me some guacamole. Afterwards we ran a few errands and headed down to Stinson Beach to hike the Matt Davis Trail. As we drove up highway one on the way to Panoramic Highway we passed through forests of eucalyptus, and while the trees are a threat to the surrounding indigenous plant life, it smelled damn amazing. Once we arrived at our destination we began our trek. It started off quite easy, but eventually each steep step killed our thighs. I'm not a hiker per see, but I would like to think that I could handle the heat, the bugs, the potential rattle snakes and I can, sort of. I froze when we hit a patch of flowers swarming with bumble bees, heaved with each step, sighed with desperation when I looked up to see how much higher we had to hike, and I would wince each time I spotted a snake hole in the trail. This thing kicked my ass, and we only hiked up about two miles! Note to self: you are so out of shape. Eventually we rested on "table top rock" which overlooked Stinson Beach. Breathtaking. Brian and I feasted on some blood oranges and cherries picked up at a vendor on highway one. We continued. For an hour or so we didn't see a single soul on the trail, so it was much to my dismay to hear something scurrying ahead of us. A fox or bear maybe? I looked up and saw a man running down the trail in our direction. I thought, "Who the hell is this guy? How could he run down this thing?" On we hiked for another half hour or so searching for some sort of "two-foot step" carved out of a tree that we had to see. Exhausted, Brian and I decided to head down before reaching the step. As we made our way down the trail the force of gravity was upon us pushing us to leap and run downward. Now I completely understood why that man was sprinting so quickly in the opposite direction. There was something very liberating about charging full speed down the trail. I felt exhilarated. I was flushed with serotonin. When we reached the base of the trail both Brian and I were drenched in sweat, but feeling amazing and on an incredible high. The ride home was quiet and contemplative.

That night Brian and I met up with a few of his friends for the "taco crawl". We began at "El Farolito" (my personal favorite of the bunch visited) and continued to about three others munching on tacos and guzzling down beers. I have to admit, after the second taqueria I was done for the night.