Beautiful Streets, Familiar Faces, and the First Signs of Fall
Last Wednesday our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group had an extremely strong turnout of 55 walkers and four K-9 best friends at the Exedra for their weekly walk.
Since July, a number of different walkers have taken on the responsibility of leading the walks. Harriette L was the latest and she had a unique concept for her walk. She promised a simple walk with no narration or local history. Just go and walk beautiful Piedmont streets. Harriette wanted to show other walkers that it was easy to lead walks, and they could do it too.
So, off the large group went, parade like, up Highland Avenue where fallen leaves on the sidewalk made clear that fall was just around the corner. Joan J's five pound K-9 best friend JT played peekaboo from Joan’s backpack with walkers as they walked. The coming of fall was confirmed in the 400 block of Wildwood Avenue with the burgundy leaves on the Autumn Blaze Maple trees that line both sides of the street. The wonderful view of San Francisco from the Hall Fenway has been enhanced by the removal of a neighbor’s tree. Crossing Crocker Avenue and going into Crocker/Bear Park got the walkers to the Benny Bufano ground granite, over five feet tall, 2.5 tons Nursing Bear and Cubs sculpture that provided a rallying place for a group photo.
Then it was up Hampton Avenue to and down Indian Road to where it interrupts and replaces LaSalle Avenue for about 100 feet of roadway. The walkers let Indian continue on to the Oakland/Piedmont city boarder and they went up LaSalle, crossed Crocker, and up the lovely, one-block Muir Avenue. New landscaping in the front yards of some of Muir’s homes made them even more attractive. A short distance down Lafayette Avenue took the group to Woodland Way and the Wistaria Way loop with its two newly built, modern design homes. Then it was beautiful Wildwood Gardens. The group took the shorter of its two loops to get them back to Wildwood and Highland Avenues for their return to the Exedra.
It had been a solid 3¼ mile walk with an on time noon return to the city center and a set of wonderful streets and great sights along the way. The group had Harriette L to thank for it.
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