You’ve heard of the Hero’s Journey, or the Hero’s Quest – an archetype of storytelling as ancient as it is overplayed in literature, film and even in modern consumer product marketing. A more right-sized version for me would be to chase a pursuit so inconsequential, so self-referential, so utterly useless -and then to write about it on the internet, even before it’s happened. This is where we are today, on August 19th, 2025, as I embark on an attempt to walk every street in San Francisco, California, merely for the ability to have said that I’ve done it. That, and perhaps the friends I’ll make along the way.

It’s not like I came up with this idea on my own, but it’s one I’ve nursed for a couple of years. I remember telling my late wife about this idea at one point, only to be halfway met with the I’m-actually-barely-listening rejoinder of “that would be so silly”. But people totally do it! And not just in San Francisco, either. This is a thing in New York City, Seattle, London and elsewhere.

It never really happened before with me because, yeah, she was right – it is pretty silly, but also because I’ve been so wedded to running the past 25 years that any time I’ve gotten myself to exercise, I have spent it repeatedly running one of my two six-mile routes in San Francisco, ad nauseam. And because while she was ill, at times gravely so, the past three years, I had been taking close care of her while also working my 9-to-5 job and partaking in innumerable hobbies and pursuits. Who has time for walking? Well sure, I’ve written about some of my walking on this site before, so those various Crosstown Trails undoubtedly whetted my appetite for something even more obsessive.

The running, alas, seems to have hit a bit of a dead end at age 57, it seems. The aches come quicker, the miles are tougher, the minor injuries last longer. The spirit is willing, the flesh may not be. I went running this past June one day, and then on to a baseball game in Sacramento the next, and I was in such staggering pain going down the aisles of the stadium there that I surely appeared to be 117 years old and/or having a stroke. Walking? Walking is no problem. I can put in the miles, let me tell you. And I had better do so, lest my lack of regular running allow my twin obsessions of a morning bagel and the odd craft beer catch up with me and add onto the “spare tire” that begins inflating of its own accord without consistent aerobic exercise (and thankfully deflates just as regularly with it).

So be it, then. I don’t want to just set out on some dumbass random walk like I did repeatedly all over southern San Francisco during the most meaningless days of the pandemic. Let there be a purpose, something to be measured and counted – to be gamified, to use a term of our time. I may not live in San Francisco forever, nor will I live forever, so now’s the time. I’m publicly committing to walking each street of my city, starting with the loop I did yesterday (pictured), doing so in configurations and at dates and times of my choosing, and then not calling it done until it’s truly done. From the halls of the Sunnydale Housing Project to the shores of Fort Point, I will tread across the full length of any and all named streets, even if it’s named Colon or Myron or Beaver or Dirk Dirkson Place. I’ll provide an update in this space once it’s completed. Of course I will.