Diversely eclectic, Guerneville is San Francisco's backyard playground on the fabled Russian River where generations of GLBTs have retreated like Thoreau at Walden Pond to vacation.
Years before the first Gay Games (1982), San Francisco's gay community already had a lot going on in organized sports. Several gay softball teams had been organized before the historic Gays vs. Cops games in 1973 and 1974.
If you are new to the Bay Area, you could be excused for thinking of the area between San Francisco and Mountain View as a nightlife free zone - at least as far as LGBT nightlife goes. But it has not always been this way.
The winter holidays are the most obvious time of year when gays, separated from their parents, are forced to decide between biological family and acquired family.
When did restaurants become gay? San Francisco gays gathered at restaurants and nightclubs that served food for decades before the Stonewall Riots in New York, and before the Compton Cafeteria riots in the Tenderloin.
The night its doors opened, the Leatherneck became the peer of vintage theme bars like The Tool Box, The No Name, and The Brig. The Leatherneck was one of the best bars of the Titanic 1970s.
When Gavin Newsom opened the romantic rotunda of City Hall for gay marriage on Valentine's Weekend 2004, he became King of Hearts. Lovers from around the globe flew to San Francisco to wed on Newsom's sweeping staircase.