Local Wandering

Yesterday Frank and I were on our way for our Sunday visit with Alex at his St Denis home in San Ramon. We were a bit too early and would have arrived right when he was being served his lunch so I asked Frank to drive around for a little while to delay our arrival. As our boredom with isolating at home and social distancing grows, our traveling expectations have lowered. I needed another Wander post to offset all the Ponder posts. We came upon some Halloween decor that was worth stopping the car, getting out and taking some photographs. These people turned their front corner yard into a graveyard, fenced in with the classic horror movie typical wrought iron fence and a resurrected spirit trying to break down the chained and padlocked gate to escape.

Around one side was a skeletal horse pulling a hearse.



Behind the hearse was a trio of formally dressed skeletons working to load (or unload) a huge wooden casket. Perhaps they were trying to free whoever or whatever was within.

On closer look, that spirit approaching the gate is a grave digger with a shovel.

Whoops. I'd better watch myself and maintain social distancing from that pumpkin-headed guy. I prefer to be anti-social with him. The gravestones are perhaps a bit safer to approach and bear clever names.

During one last overview, before we moved on, I noticed a tangle of electrical cables leading to an array of floodlights in the grass. I surmise that this front yard must be spectacularly spooky at night. Since the figures are about life size, Frank and I discussed how scary it would be for the home owner to stand out there stationary among them but then lunge or move eerily when people pass by. BOO! 

Circling around to head back to Alex's, we passed a park whose name caught my eye. We are in northern, not southern, California so I wondered why it had that name.

Sure enough farther down the road, adjacent, was Walt Disney Elementary School. That name? This far north?

Once home I checked out the website for the school and learned its background. I did not know we had such a unique namesake so close to home in Alex's neighborhood.

Back in 1974, Disney students [from this school] were housed at Neil Armstrong School while awaiting completion of this facility. The district had asked the students who would attend the new school to select a name. The criteria for the name selection was that this be an American hero. The students voted to name the new school after Walt Disney, the man who had brought so many wonderful children's films into existence. ... There are three Walt Disney Elementary schools in California. The other two are in Anaheim (the home of Disneyland) and Burbank (the home of Disney studios).

So it appears there are interesting sights to see, even if travels are restricted to those close to home. Wandering, although curtailed in scope, is still an option.