I jokingly told our Walking on Wednesdays group this Wednesday, "We're taking over the world ... or at least Piedmont." We were pleased to welcome five new walkers and two new dog best friends this week. They joined us for about an hour and a half walk on an unusually warm, humid day.
We continued our exploration of hidden Piedmont walkways and stairs that we began last week. Charlene Louie had shared with us with her copy of "Secret Stairs - East Bay" by Charles Fleming. This interesting guide book provides walking tours that include hidden stairways and neighborhoods paths all around the East Bay and four of them include Piedmont streets and stairs. We walked the area between Dracena Park and Grand Avenue last week, and this week we focused on one of the book's walks in the streets below Wildwood School. Charlene couldn't be with us this week, so Priscilla Wanerus took charge. With guidebook in hand Priscilla lead us through Piedmont Park to streets below that included Requa, Prospect, Harvard, Annerley, Portsmouth, Ranleigh, Wildwood, Lakeshore, Windsor, Wallace, Palm, Magnolia, MacKinnon,
and Arbor.
We found an interesting stairway that connects MacKinnon and Arbor, and also had a long walk up a private street behind Ranleigh Way that leads to a set of stairs that goes up to Wildwood Ave. As you know, we have an objective of eventually walking to every street in Piedmont and we were able to check off a number of new streets as a result of this week's walk. We also walked
past a home with a lovely set of stairs and the first Halloween house decorations of the season where we stopped for a group photo.
As is often the case, we met people along the way. As we were walking past Piedmont High, returning to our Exedra home base, we met Sylvia M, the mother of a newly hired Piedmont High School Spanish teacher. Sylvia is delighted that her daughter is getting her first teaching job in Piedmont, and is now focused on helping her daughter find an apartment, or room, in
our high rent area.