Afton Con Ganas: INNOVATIVE INSPIRATION.

Redway, CA has a lot in common with places of astounding natural beauty--such as Big Sur, Yellowstone, Muir Woods, and Aurora Borealis. All organic origination; existing consistently without the threat of extinction (so far). Sprawling, green, lush, grand, and best of all, peaceful. My reason for driving up there is as good as it gets....wait for it...Animal Collective! My trip was full of beautiful scenery, decadent food and drink, inventive music, and fateful inspiration. Be forewarned, I'll be splitting this get-away-from-LA trip into four separate posts for two reasons--Intention numero uno: to not overwhelm you, and numero dos: to bait you into reading every word, hopefully, and if you do, gratefully. Here we go.

I spent hours driving up through the grapevine and stopped at a friend's in Berkley to crash for the night. Thank you (you know who you are). I woke up bright and, well...not so early. Which cramped tentative plans made earlier that night, before the two bottles of Sofia were enjoyed thoroughly.

I headed out in a flash with my special somebody and grabbed a pizza from Berkeley's very renowned Cheeseboard Pizza Collective. Cheeseboard is what one would call a co-operative.

This is a concept I have pretended to have a fleeting understanding of, but for the lay person, and for the sake of my perpetual education, I have come to learn that this means the business is owned by the workers, whom--make all the decisions as a group, sans a manager, in a process seemingly more democratic than our own government. With all that said this wouldn’t mean much to me on paper if the pizza itself weren’t so taste bud-romancing and astounding. What is even more impressive is that I rarely respond to the non-tomato based “white” pizzas to the point where I would generally say I dislike them. The fact that this is one of the better pizzas I have had, straddling a perfect balance between fresh, seasonal ingredients and pure decadent delight, makes it a pizza I highly recommend you behold unto yourself. They change their pizza option everyday and list it very conveniently online. I included a photo of the menu so you could see the ingredients of the specific pizza we had that lovely early afternoon. It was incredibly light and fresh for such a cheesy pizza and the ingredients all complimented each other in such a way that it is really set in my memory as the perfect Spring pizza.

After scarfing down half of the pizza in the front seat of our car, we continued our drive towards Redway. About an hour in, we stopped at the Marin County Civic Center which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. My guy is a Frankophile, and this stop is an absolute must if you are as well.

The Civic Center is in San Rafael, CA and was designed by FLW at about the same time as the Guggenheim, however, the completion of the Civic Center did not arrive until after his passing. The man has left such a legacy though. The building is astounding in terms of it's architecture. The circular design is fantastic, every curvature and rounded edge truly reminded me (figuratively) of the feminine shape/silhouette. The dedication to the land it was built on was respectful, the color palette was perfect (I didn't plan this outfit I promise), they had a library to truly delve into (which I fulfill on the next post), and a self-reversing escalator. Which turned us around at first, but floored us after we were briefed on the reversing capability by a passerby who is apparently accustomed to confused guests on the escalator at around 4pm. Definitely Innovative Inspiration.