It’s been raining and raining here for the past two weeks – but it finally started to let up this weekend, just in time for a Sunday hike up Mount Tamalpais. Mount Tam is the iconic peak in Marin County. It’s framed in our living room window – and I hadn’t explored there at all yet!

It was still foggy as we drove up to the ranger’s station. Once we got into the woods, everything was green green green, and all of the streams down the mountain were rushing with water. From our lookout point, the fog was still hanging in the air, but there was still an awesome panoramic view of the bay, the headlands, and the distant city.

I’m looking forward to some more hiking and outdoor adventures this spring. One of the girls hiking with us on Sunday had started using MeetUp to connect with local hikers – pretty cool! Where did you get out to this weekend?

Over the weekend, I made a last-minute visit to the De Young Museum in the city. It was a few hours perfectly spent wandering through some favorite galleries, sitting in the cafe with a notebook, and walking through Golden Gate park with my camera.

Wherever I’ve lived, going to the city museum has always been an easy urban retreat for me. I love the quiet structure of the museum, the smell like preserved history, and always the art, familiar and new. It reminds me of college art history studies, and past job lives, and traveling abroad, and all the cities that I’ve visited.

It’s one of my kinds of creative “scratching” – a just right term from Twyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit – a regular routine of wandering and exploring the world to gather new ideas, big and small. The combination of quiet space, spontaneous wandering and visual prompts always gets new ideas whirring. Now I’m itching to get to work!

So what are you doing to scratch your creative itch this week?

listening to: Have You Ever by Brandi Carlile (listen)

This weekend, we spent two days in the city at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival – a free weekend-long concert in Golden Gate Park. It was pretty crowded and crazy at each of the stages — but once our blanket was parked, then it was great to sit back and enjoy the music. And oh yes, that lineup of free music was awesome.

A few folks that we saw: Carolina Chocolate Drops, Joan Baez, Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, David Grisman…

Plus, city time means lots of eating events – first potluck brunch with friends, later beer+sandwiches at Monk’s Kettle, dessert at Chile Pie, then Sunday brunch at Cafe Flore, and multiple cups at Philz Coffee.

So glad to have been back in the city for the weekend. We’ll be there again soon.

listening to: Songbird by Emmlylou Harris (listen)

Wherever I live, finding the local coffee shop is always an important first step to settling into the neighborhood. Within a month of living in our new place in Marin, I stumbled on Graffeo Coffee—a small roastery located in our downtown San Rafael. Started in San Francisco, they have been a single-focus coffee roaster since the 1930s (in other words, no cups of coffee for sale here!). That’s commitment to the art+science of roasting! They roast in small batches and offer a simple menu of dark, light or mixed roasts.

In a pinch, I’ve bought a few other coffees from Whole Foods in the past few weeks–but they’re really no match for Graffeo. I love the strong strong, smooth, clean flavor of freshly roasted beans, and Graffeo Coffee hits the spot (plus perfectly ground, if you like). Tomorrow I’m picking up a long overdue half-pound of their dark roast, mmmmm.

Any local coffee spots that you know and love?

Graffeo Coffee
1314 4th St
San Rafael, CA 94901
(415) 457-5131

listening to: Burn One Down by Ben Harper (listen)

With an empty kitchen last night, I decided to walk downtown to one of the favorite local foodie spots: Sol Food. I figured their homestyle comfort food would do me good to settle in to my minicity life.

Sol Food is hard to miss in San Rafael with two locations within blocks of each other – and one of them painted lime green! Their homestyle Puerto Rican food is so good that just the rice+beans are worth waiting in line for. For me, the standard is their veggie combo with perfectly olive-garlic-herbed pink beans and a couple of their tostones (crispy garlic fried plantains), along with rice, avocado and a handful of mixed greens. Simple and just right.

photo by nealpatel

It’s always a buzz of energy just walking inside. The interiors of both locations are bursting with color, well-worn furniture, and potted plants in containers of all shapes and sizes. The knives and forks are in buckets on each of the communal tables, and piles of napkins are weighed down with plantains. Plus they make a killer hot sauce.

photo by cproppe

PS Check out this (hilarious) grievance letter that the owner posted (in a lime green frame) by the restaurant’s front door.

Sol Food
732 4th Street
San Rafael, CA