G’day to all you chickadees and jay-boys of Healdsburg. And a very happy Cinco de Mayo to any who celebrate! I’ll be bartending for the holiday tonight at the Dry Creek General Store & Bar just northwest of town… one of the few special spots around here where “the old Healdsburg” is alive and well. We’ll be serving up delicious tacos and hosting live music from 4-6pm; I’d love to see all your shining faces outside of this 2D inbox land, so do swing by if you can. But before the party can get started, we’ve got some local news to cover. Here’s what you’ll find in the newsletter today:

Please note: In a previous version of this newsletter, I shared the 2025 band lineup for “Tuesdays in the Plaza,” thinking it was the new 2026 lineup. I am very embarrassed about this, as you might imagine, and also very sorry for any confusion I might have caused. Stay tuned for the actual 2026 lineup, coming soon… 🤦‍♀️

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It’s been around 70 years since a passenger train last came to Healdsburg — but the SMART train plans to break our dry spell in 2028, when Healdsburg’s old Hudson Street train station reopens for service. And this coming Friday, from 1-3pm on the afternoon of May 8, we’re all invited to come celebrate the official start of the construction process with a groundbreaking ceremony at the new Foley Family Community Pavilion on North Street. This will also be your first chance to hop on the SMART merch train! Attendees will enjoy “complimentary refreshments, commemorative T-shirts and swag,” say the folks at SMART. RSVP here.

Today the land is still wet and the sky still unsettled from the brief spring rain we got yesterday, to the tune of about half an inch. But the clouds will soon clear and make way for a hot, sunny stretch of perfect river days over the coming week, according to the Bay Area office of the National Weather Service. After that, we could still get a tad more rain before the dry season takes over for good, if we are to believe Accuweather’s long-term forecast for Healdsburg. Things are definitely heating up in general, though. (Including the ocean waters off our coastline… as explored in a recent Mercury News piece titled, “Record ocean heat off California coast echoes ‘Blob,’ killing seabirds and reshaping weather outlook.” Yikes!) Anyway, here’s the full NWS forecast for Healdsburg this week: