jayfurr | San Francisco

The streets of San Francisco are calling me.

But so are the streets of Berkeley and Oakland and Mill Valley and Tiburon and Daly City.

I'm referring, of course, to the upcoming San Francisco Bay Area 3-Day For The Cure. The big 60-mile, 3-day walk to raise funds for the fight against breast cancer. Most everyone calls it the San Francisco 3-Day, but it's not, not really. It's the Bay Area 3-Day, as its full name, above, states. San Francisco traffic can be bad enough without Susan G. Komen For The Cure trying to snarl things for an entire weekend with several thousand women and men in pink bras and tutus strolling down Market Street and through the Tenderloin and the Castro. Thus the "Let's snarl things in Oakland, TOO!" aspect of the event.

The walk starts on Friday, September 9 at the "Cow Palace" arena in Daly City, just south of San Francisco. We'll go through opening ceremonies (a spectacle for the ages involving huge bonfires, leaping fountains, and a flyover by the Blue Angels, repainted pink for the occasion) and then head discreetly in the direction of the Pacific, passing Lake Merced and skirting along the western edge of San Francisco proper. We'll walk along Ocean Beach and then up through Lands End, looking out over the legendary Golden Gate and heading east through Pacific Heights toward the unsuspecting tourists at Fisherman's Wharf. I can't wait for that. I've been to Fisherman's Wharf on several occasions. The camera-toting Japanese tourists are going to LOVE us.

And then we're all going to get on ferries and go camp on an isolated island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.

Yes, really.

Our camp is usually in a big public park somewhere. It's not unusual to get to the end of the route on Day 1 and find a bus waiting for you... because said "big public park" may be inconveniently located off the route. We bus to the park, camp, and sometimes bus back from the park to the start of the Day 2 route. Or we walk in a big loop to and from the park on Day 2 and bus to the start of the route on Day 3. It's an exciting adventure in logistics and transportation planning and I wouldn't take on the challenge of organizing it all for love or money.

But this year, we're not going to be on buses. Well, most of us won't. There will still be "SAG" buses along the route for walkers who can't continue because they stepped off a curb badly and sprained an ankle, or whose blisters made strong and hearty medical crewmembers recoil in fear. But the "bus" this year will be a Red and White Fleet ferry and the "big public park" will be Treasure Island, an artificial island halfway across the Bay to Oakland. You can't walk to Treasure Island; it's only accessible via an exit off I-80 on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Or, obviously, via water. Rather than have us complete the route by swimming from Fisherman's Wharf to camp, they decided to use ferries.

On Day 2, Saturday, we're going to take a ferry from camp to the east side of the Bay and walk through Berkeley and Oakland, having lunch at Lake Merritt before ending our day at Jack London Square. Then it's back on another ferry to camp.

And on Day 3 -- the day I'm really looking forward to, we're going to take one final ferry north to Marin County and the city of Tiburon. And then we're going to walk south through Tiburon and Mill Valley and Sausalito. And then we're going to turn the Golden Gate Bridge PINK. Several thousand walkers, streaming south across the world's most iconic bridge, is going to make quite a sight. I just wish we got to walk across it twice. After that experience, the final few miles to closing ceremonies at Marina Green on the north shore of San Francisco will just fly by.

Closing ceremonies will, if anything, be much more impressive than opening. Opening ceremonies are kept somewhat short, with a few speakers and a procession of flagbearers and a good bit of rah-rah, but the closing ceremonies are guaranteed to make the tears flow. I hope spectators in the area of Marina Green come over that Sunday afternoon and take a look. If you're in the area and want to come watch, we'd love to have you. I'd arrive around 4 pm; the 3-Day website says closing ceremonies start at 5, but I don't think that's right. They're usually earlier and wrap up by 5. If you can't make closing but would like to come out and cheer us along the route, the 3-Day staff have organized official 'cheering stations' along the route. You can get all the details here.

Why will the tears flow? The 3-Day For The Cure is a celebration of life and a celebration of determination to overcome. It's also an opportunity for us to remember those who lost the fight against breast cancer and to pay tribute to those still fighting. We honor those who walked, those who served as support crew, and most importantly, the survivors, whose entry into closing ceremonies is the moment of moments. If you've never seen several thousand women and men in pink holding their sneakers on high in tribute to the survivors that we all walk for, come have a look. It's something to behold.

Carole and I will have an interesting part to play in and among everything. While a lot of walkers take part as solo walkers and form up into little groups with other walkers they meet along the way, and others form great big teams of twenty or thirty or forty members, Carole and I will sort of split the difference: we're Team Otter and Lemur, a team of two. We even got t-shirts made up, purple wicking t-shirts with a team "logo" on the front in pink. Said logo depicts the state of Vermont with a pink ribbon superimposed in front.

I can't honestly say that we're going to have the fundraising impact of the bigger teams, or that we actually needed the team t-shirts to be able to find one another in a crowd or along the route, but still, small or not, a team is a team, right?

I can't remember looking forward to a 3-Day walk as much as this one. I've done eight so far, three as crew for the Boston 3-Day and five as a walker (DC twice, Philly once, Twin Cities once, and Tampa Bay once) and I've got three to go this year (San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Atlanta). I'm also really looking forward to Atlanta, but for a different reason: I'm co-captain of a team of 30 walkers and crew ("Team Twitter ATL") for that event, and that's gonna be a blast... but in terms of sheer scenic beauty and neat-o cool moments, I think it's going to be hard to top walking in the Bay Area.

That being said, I'm sorry that we have to hold these walks in the first place. The money thrown away on some of our more irresponsible government expenditures would have made a huge impact in the fight against cancer, but that ship has sailed. Until such time as we get our national priorities in line with reality, I'm happy to do what I can for the cause of bringing an end to breast cancer. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of work walking sixty miles in some of the hilliest terrain in the country, but I'm going to do it with a smile, tired or not, blistered or not.

After all, it beats the hell out of chemo.