I Played Hookey and Cruised Over to Spring Lake Park in Bennett Valley, Santa Rosa, CA

I confess...Spring Lake Park in Santa Rosa, CA beckoned me so I played hookey (hookie? hooky? You know what I mean!) yesterday afternoon. The late summer weather was a perfect 78 degrees and it was just too nice to stay inside and work, so I jumped in our ’65 VW convertible and headed over to glorious Spring Lake Park in Bennett Valley.

Spring Lake is one of my favorites of the 46 inspiring regional parks in our magnificent Sonoma County parks system and it is almost within walking distance of my home in Santa Rosa. Situated in Bennett Valley, there are numerous hiking trails, a great family picnic and swim area at the Lagoon, bike trails, playgrounds, boat launches, horse trails, overnight camp grounds and of course the lovely Spring Lake.

This park is typically filled with lots of families having picnics, but this afternoon it was relatively quiet since it was it after Labor Day and things are definitely starting to wind down. There is such a quiet beauty about Spring Lake and I find myself walking the dogs there often on the miles of paved walkways. I can’t wait for later in September when they are going to open the Lagoon for a ‘Dog Day’ and I can take my Golden Retriever, Tiberious, for a fun afternoon of swimming! Glenn will bring his Labs, Cali and Lilly andall the Mortgage Retrievers will all have a ball.

On this particular afternoon, I was delighted to find the ‘Park & Eat Food Trucks’ on site and according to Indio, who manned the Sonoma County Parks Booth, there are a rotating number of delicious food trucks who set up from 4pm until dusk, and will be doing so until the end of October. Yum! My carnitas tacos were fabulous!

If you’re ever visiting our gorgeous northern California wine country of Sonoma County, you will have so many choices of neat places to go and see, so come and enjoy!! And you might as well also check out our Santa Rosa real estate market while you're at it! Here is a great resource for an authentic wine country visit. September and October will reward you with some of the nicest weather of the year, although I have to tell you that having near perfect year round weather is hard to beat. And harvest has finally started, so there is lots of activity in the wine country. Fun times!