You can take a magical tour of Alameda s fairy doors with this online map
Meaghan Tiernan
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Set a routine, they said. Get dressed every day, they said.
The advice we received early in the pandemic tried to normalize an abnormal year. But nothing really felt normal.
But there was one piece of advice my family managed to follow: Take a walk. Even on days when we didn’t make it out of our pajamas or eat anything besides cereal, we usually managed to step outside and explore our neighborhood.
Fairies like to picnic too.Freda Moon
It was during one of these outings that we discovered the gnomes. These small painted characters wearing red pointy hats or modeled after Snow White’s dwarfs lived on nearly every block in our Oakland neighborhood. As the pandemic wore on, we started to spot ones, like a “Happy Mother’s Day” gnome family (complete with laptops) in May and a masked-up gnome doctor, just steps from our home.
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We wanted to find who makes SF s fairy doors. So we left a note in one
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FILE - One of the hidden fairy doors in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. After seven years, the original caretakers of the doors are moving away from the Bay Area and a new guardian is stepping in.Douglas Zimmerman/SFGate.comShow MoreShow Less
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“It s been pretty amazing for me, getting to see the joy and inspiration we help to create, said Powell. In wanting to show some people a little magic, I ended up witnessing a miracle myself.”Amanda Bartlett/SFGATEShow MoreShow Less