I am shamefully bad at doing write ups. Hence it has taken me nigh on a month to put this one together. To be fair until fairly recently I had not had extended access to a computer, and until 4 days ago, I did not have access to mine which has made it harder to post things.

The Journey to Journey:
The start of My Journey began on September 8th when Firecracker and I (Beetlebomb) set out from Chicago on our bicycles. Early on in the trip we realized that Journey Halloween was happening in San Francisco, and both of us wanting to visit the Bay, we decided to make plans for the two adventures to coincide.
Using our two feet and steel frames, we visited Madison and Minneapolis Then to Portland by train Eugene by bike, SF courtesy of ride share, day trip on bikes down to Santa Cruz and back up to sf by bus and train. Many many adventures were had and many amazing things were seen, none of which is there room to recount here.

Finally the big day arrived.
Earlier in the day We helped Spidere and Anna One with bell assembly for their check point. They refused to tell us what they were for, but in retrospect, my guess was pretty close. Over Pie, we discussed how we had been wished a happy Halloween by people. which we appreciated,but to us it wasn't Halloween. it was Journey Day.

I was actually rather terrified going into the game.
This was to be my third Journey to the End of the Night, but my first one running. The past two times had both been on my turf in Chicago. Also, I am usually the one scaring the shit out of people on a bicycle, not the one being scared shitless.

We got there early which proved to be a good idea, as there were more people then there were release forms.

Finally we were off and running. we took a lesser traveled path to check point one, yet still encountered several chasers. during one bout Firecracker and I were separated and I found myself in league with a guy named Brendan. Man is that kid stealthy. had a few more close calls on the way to one met up with firecracker in the safe zone. and headed off again.

It should be mentioned that Firecracker is a runner and is much faster then I, so it was no real surprise upon being chased shortly after that first point, that we lost each other again. Continuing on with Brendon we happened upon a few of his friends one of which was Edwin Farnham Butler III.

In a parking lot a few blocks down we ran into annana who warned us of chasers around the next building, which we safely avoided. However, not even a block later most of our group was caught, again leaving Brendan and I against the mean streets. after that group of chasers almost every chaser we saw was disappointingly apathetic. however a few chasers did manage to scatter our nearly formed group and that was the last I saw of Brendan that evening. I hope you made it to the end friend! arriving at 2 I was at the end of the big player rush. standing in line for quite a while, I met up back up with Firecraker, Praximity, the KristinawithaK and one of their friends (who I'm sorry I can't recall your name). Upon exiting the safe zone KristinawithaK and her friend were caught. the other three of us narrowly escaped. we weighed our options and decided to take the bus most of the way to the next check point, which ended up taking forever and not taking us very far at all. the bus however was hillariously packed to the brim with a good 60% being journey players.

A mere few steps outside of the bus shelter and a block away from check point three a chaser jumped out of an alcove and got Praximity and I. it was rather anti climactic and a little disappointing. If I had to be caught I was hoping it would be out in the open, it would be a long and tedious chase dodging cars would be involved, and running, jumping over fences, down alleys, something! There was no way to see around the corner, and it was the only way to the safe zone. but what ya gonna do. its all part of the journey. I stopped by 3 to see Anna One and Spidere then headed on to check point 5 as I realized by the time I got to 4 that I would probably miss the big rush and I wanted to chase as many people as possible. I found a group of chasers to travel with and headed out. They were as well horribly apathetic, and though perfectly friendly people, much more excited about their later party plans then the game. They slowly meandered over to 5 which I was quite ready to get to. However being that we were in the tenderloin district and I am a 5 foot tall girl, flying solo didn't seem like the best of plans, even though I was wearing a cape. we did happen upon one group of player getting off the bus, I didn't catch any of them but gave one of them a very good scare and after chasing her around the courthouse (? that big fancy building down town) lawn, chased her back onto the bus she had gotten off of. she was screaming franticly " I'M GETTING ON THIS BUS! I'M GETTING ON THIS BUS! YOU CAN'T TAG ME!!!" all the time not really being sure at what moment that rule becomes a safe zone.

upon getting to 5 I met up again with KristinawithaK and praximity and (Brian maybe?) we discussed a few tactics of player chasing and camped out at a few points for a bit but there were no players in sight. They decided to head to noise bridge and I decided to try to out stalk more players, hoping that any minute the big group would start filtering through, also hoping to meet up with Firecracker. To no avail, there seemed to be a pretty steep drop off somewhere between 3 and 5 I was there for over an hour and saw very precious few runners come through. also what players were in the park many were just kinda hanging out ( I guess having given up on playing?) which also made it harder to spot out the runners leaving the check point. I tried waiting down a dark alley after 15 minutes standing alone in a doorway I abandoned this. I then started trying to track players walking out of the park but was way too conspicuous and they would just wait for me to leave or go one of the other 5 directions out of the park. Firecracker in the mean time had called and said she would be to 5 soon and we could just head to the end point together. It ended up taking her much longer then she expected it to, which was not a problem, but unfortunately by the time she got there I was cold and getting rather grumpy (which really doesn't happen very often). All the runners had passed through, Journey was coming to a close, and I had chased exactly 1 person. Unacceptable!

We headed to Noisebridge, with me trying not to be grumbley. All this was rectified upon meeting up with Anna One and Spidere and getting burritos. I do love burritos. I also love Anna One and Spidere. Back at noisebridge we had a great time and met many wonderful people, as well as meeting up with some we already knew.

The next day Firecracker and I had brunch with Rubin, Sam, Sean, Ian and Jackie which was quite lovely! Then we had to run away to East Bay and were on a train to Denver on the 2nd! Back in Chicago for the Holidays then off adventuring again after that. Bye San Francisco! I'll miss you! Don't worry I'll be back again soon.

Thanks everyone for making my Journey in San Francisco such a marvelous event!