It was supposed to be just a regular walk last Wednesday when the Piedmont Recreation Department's Walking on Wednesdays group, with 24 walkers and three K-9 best friends met at the Exedra. They had not gone to Moraga Avenue and to the city's northwest streets for some time, so that was their target. The group headed down Highland Avenue to Moraga, enjoying the Halloween decorations on full display in many front yards. Walking in a single file they went down the narrow Moraga Avenue sidewalk until they came to Estrella Avenue, where they looked over to the Mountain View Cemetery wall and saw a large elk statue. They speculated it was part of the cemetery where deceased members of the Elks Lodge are buried.
Continuing down Moraga they came to the unique apartment complex designed like a villa and owned by the Canizales family. Shari Fuji's friend, Karen Toto, lives there and invited everyone in to see the court- yard.
The visit with Karen and views of San Francisco were unexpected and special. The walkers went up Ronada Avenue to Montecello and through Dracena Park, where their K-9 friends got off their leashes for a run. Emerging on Dracena Avenue, the group admired the long line of ghosts in the street trees, a long tradition by the neighbors each Halloween.
They took a shortcut to inspect the purple courts of the new Corey Reich Tennis Center and were met by a band of pre-schoolers from the Recreation Department's Tiddlywinks program armed with water spray bottles. With the temperature rising, the walkers were happy to be cooled off. Back on Magnolia they checked out the steel frame of the high school's 3-1/2 story classroom build ing under construction. They arrived back at the Exedra, completing the two-plus mile walk in 90 minutes, and before it got really hot.