Sunny Easter Weekend Brings Out Bonnets, Bikinis

Egg hunts, fashion parades, horse races, beach parties and appeals for the needy marked the beginning of the Easter weekend.

Most of the nation basked in spring sunshine Saturday, as temperatures soared into the 80s in most regions.

“It’s beautiful weather,” said New York City Parks Commissioner Henry Stern at the Easter Egg Rolling Contest in Central Park. “There’s over 100,000 people in various events all around the park--runners, hundreds of kids, walkers, bikers, boaters.”

The rites of spring started Saturday in Camden, S.C., with the Carolina Cup, the state’s most popular horse-racing event. More than 40,000 people toting picnic lunches and wearing spring fashions turned out for the day of steeplechase racing.

South Carolina also had a parade, egg hunts, entertainment and a carnival at the 20th annual Governor’s Frog Jump in Springfield, held to pick a state champion to enter the national frog-jumping contest this summer in Calaveras County, Calif.

For many, a weekend at the beach was in order to shed memories of winter’s cold and gloom, and more than 300,000 people were expected to visit South Carolina’s 65-mile Grand Strand ocean beaches.

Not everyone favored the crowded places. Sharon Boyko, 33, an emergency room nurse at the Albany, N.Y., Medical Center, planned to set out alone “as soon as the sun rises” this morning to hike the 2,154-mile Appalachian Trail from Spencer Mountain, Ga., to Mt. Katahdin, Me. She hopes to raise $20,000 for charity through the hike, which she expects to complete about June 20.