It’s Picnic Season… So Meet the Picnic Rocketpack!

I love picnics. I LOVE picnics.  As a kid, we never camped, rarely picnicked, and went to parks only rarely. My folks grew up in the city, so as far as they were concerned, living on a 2.5-acre expanse of green, bordered by cowfields on two sides and a tar road on the third, they were camping every night and living in a park. But I loved the days when we walked down to Rogersville’s Lion’s Club park to swing on their swings, or when we even drove into Waynesburg to play on the really big playground set. We had a sandbox, a tire swing and jungle gym at home, but as every kid knows, playing is so much better when it’s with someone else’s toys, in someone else’s home.

Which brings me back to picnics. Picnics aren’t just about eating outside; picnics are to outdoor eating what camping is to walking around your backyard. Picnics require planning. They require a place that is not your home. Best of all, they require a sunny afternoon, and now that the rain seems to have finally stopped in San Francisco, we have plenty of sunny afternoons on the way. (That is, if one lives downtown or in the Mission and it’s between noon and 3 PM. After that, the fog comes back in and all bets are off.)

Back in September, when the Agent of Chaos seemed slightly more manageable–portable, anyway–we went on at least one picnic a week. Pack up the blanket, the corkscrew, stop at a grocery store for some takeaway fried chicken, tomato salad and white wine, and pick a nice spot somewhere nearby. We live in the heart of downtown, but I’m always amazed by the number of green spaces San Francisco offers. And they’re not just green; they’re blue, too, with beautiful expanses of sky, and sometimes, water.

Like LaFayette Park, at Sacramento and Gough.

Two months old and we left the house! He's so proud.

This little square of green called Sydney Walton Square is on Jackson Street, across from a conveniently placed Safeway. And check out the backdrop!

This was a very, very good Mother's Day.

Yerba Buena Gardens is a gem in SoMA, especially in the summertime, when there’s live music every weekend. Memorial Day weekend was the excellent Gay and Lesbian Freedom Band playing American classics (Casey at Bat!).

Ten months old, and he's resigned to being the babyholder.

Or the park on Nob Hill, where you’ve got a fountain, playground, Grace Cathedral and the Fairmont as your background… and occasionally the antique car show that precedes the California Mille.

Playgrounds and DeLoreans: every baby's dream.

You’ve also got the park at Cupid’s Arrow on the Embarcadero (of which I do not have pictures, as that picnic was a post-work Memorial Day kickoff and we forgot the camera); and we’ve been known to hop the City CarShare out to Sutro Park, Crissy Field and even Golden Gate Park.

Did I mention I love San Francisco?

OK, I’ll step back from the bragging and get to the semi-helpful part. We picnicked enough in October that we grew tired of constantly checking for everything (Napkins? Did we get silverware? Should we bring the cutting board? Dang it, have to buy ANOTHER corkscrew…) so we did what we Rockets do: organized. I have a backpack leftover from college–it’s 17 years old, still in great shape, and I weep that it’s been 15 years since I was a freshman in college–and the best part is that it’s got loads of pockets. If you choose to put together your own Picnic Rocketpack, I recommend going for the pockets; it makes finding all the loose parts much easier.  Of course, you could buy a pre-assembled picnic backpack for a mere $99.95, but I think that’s overdoing it a bit, don’t you?

Here’s a list of what we keep in the Rocketpack; I indicated the only items we bought.

• Silverware for two (butter knives, spoons and forks)
• Paper napkins (leftover from various Thai and Chinese deliveries)
• Ziploc bag with baby sunscreen and mosquito repellent
• Corkscrew
• Swiss army knife
• Four plastic cups
• Large plastic cutting board. I recommend going with an old one you’re planning to throw out someday. Replace it now with a nice new one, stick the scratched one in the backpack, and you’ll look on it fondly. And I do recommend using a large cutting board–you’ll thank me when you’re balancing a cup of wine while slicing into a baguette.
• Lightweight picnic table tablecloth. This isn’t for a table, necessarily, but they’re so light and great to have when your party expands beyond two or three people.
• Good waterproof picnic blanket. We have several, but the ABO Gear Ground Hog is the one we use most often. (We got the Woolrich picnic blanket as a gift from my in-laws, and we use it for our grab-the-blanket-just-in-case picnic occasions.) The Ground Hog’s only $30, waterproof on one side, flannel on the other, folds into its own bag and comes with its own stakes. Which we lost the first time out. Still, shoes always work.
• Lastly, if you live in San Francisco: small pair of stretchy gloves and a packable windbreaker. You never know when the fog will come back in.

So that’s it. The only thing we actually bought for the bag was the picnic blanket. And the backpack’s roomy enough to fit the ever-important bottle of wine, grocery store takeaway, cheese, bread, and strawberries. And, of course, a bottle of formula and some Snapeas for the Agent of Chaos.