Favorite Things in My Town: Link Party

By Kate Riley August 31, 2011

Greetings all, welcome to a fun little get together all about the favorite things in your town!  I look forward to reading about where you all live and what you love about it. 

Quickly, I’ll share my three favorite things about where I live.  For those who don’t know, I live in a great little town called Petaluma in Northern California, which had a little feature in Country Living last year.  It’s 45 minutes north of San Francisco, 30 minutes from the coast, and next door to Sonoma in the heart of the Wine Country, which brings me to my first favorite thing about where I live . . .

1) Proximity   I’m a lucky gal, I get to make day trips to San Francisco and some weekends we head out to the coast, but my most favorite thing about my town is being surrounded by vineyards and having quick access to great wines.  

city coast wine country

2)  Charm   I appreciate so much the architecture of the classic homes in my town – we have a lot of unique Victorians and historic homes.  Our family takes walks around town in the good weather months with all of the neighbors out and about, and it’s like a throwback to a bygone era, we love that. 

petaluma homes

3) Second Hand Stores & Scores   Y’all know my incurable addiction for hunting down second hand treasures.  Most of the furniture I find comes from thrift stores, and we have some really great ones here locally.   My town is also known for its antique shops and the annual Antique Faire when the downtown streets close, and vendors from all over the Bay Area come here to sell their unique vintage finds.  I force request nicely that the hub stays home with the kiddies while I stroll and admire all the old cool stuff.  For me, it’s one of the best days of the year!

second hand finds

What about you? 

Link up with a story about the favorite things in your town, and please stop by a few other’s links to mix and mingle! 

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41 comments

  1. What a great idea! I love seeing other places through the hometown folks eyes…it gives you a more realistic perspective. I see several I’d love to visit!

  2. How fun it was to write this post and remember my favorite hometown pizza place! Thanks – now I also have a list of places to visit all over after seeing all the other links!

  3. I love this idea!!! I am totally smitten with my little river town! I had a great time snapping photos and writing about the place I call home. Thanks for hosting! I hope you will check out my post at The Corson Cottage.

  4. Hi Kate, I love this linky party! I truly love where I live and love to share it. Looks like your neck of the woods is fabulous too. Thanks for hosting.

  5. Kate what a great idea, I will do a post soon on just this!! I love to learn of other cities I haven’t visited!

    Come and join my new fashion Giveaway from Fresh Produce!

    xoxo
    Karena
    Art by Karena

  6. Thank you so much for hosting this, Kate. I think it will be really fun to browse these links. I had a lot of fun getting pics of the historic “old towne” area in my town. I don’t get down there often, but it’s the best part of my area—history that dates back before the Civil War! I have to agree with your mention of proximity–I’m able to get to Washington DC and even Richmond very easily…so much to do! Thanks again for a fun, unique link party idea.

  7. Thank you so much for having this party, Kate! I always love and adore your photos of California. I know the weather is amazing there and you certainly make me want to visit someday! I just moved to the Caribbean island of Grenada 3 weeks ago. I’ve been completely inspired by the slow place of life here, which is what I wrote about. It’s given me a lot of time for introspection. I never thought I could last without a phone constantly attached to the internet all day long. I hope I can take these lessons with me when we return back to the states in 2.5 years.

    Also, I mentioned this in a comment last week and I hope you don’t mind me saying it here, but any of these amazing hometown stories would fit in well with the link party I have running this week if anyone would like to submit their post to more than one party today: http://www.budgetblonde.com/2011/08/this-is-wherever-wednesday-linky-party_30.html

    Thanks so much again Kate.
    xoxo,
    Cat Alford
    @BudgetBlonde

  8. Thanks for the little tour!! I’d love a ‘real life’ tour of those gorgeous old homes! You truly are blessed with a great place to live. And what a great reminder to not take it (where we live – me on the almost East coast) for granted!

  9. Hi Kate! I loved this idea and couldn’t resist joining the party. After reading your post today I realized I may have gone a bit crazy with my post, but what can I say? I love my little town. :)

    Thanks for the great idea and inspiration. What a great excuse to take the night off and go photograph some of my favorite places.

    You can read about the place I call home, Missoula, Montana here: http://twsst.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/the-city-of-missoula/

    Janna

  10. I’m going to have to carve out a big chunk of time to go through these links. They ALL look fascinating!

    I had planned a post about the beautiful old homes in my town of New Bern, NC. Then, Hurricane Irene swept through town, so I revised my post to talk about the value of location and neighbors.

    Thanks for hosting this Linky, Kate.

  11. This linky party is a great idea, love seeing where everyone is from. One day I hope to make it to California, Hubby has family there that he hasn’t seen in ages. Your pictures are beautiful and make me want to go there even more.

  12. I love this Linky Party Kate! I can’t wait to look through everyone’s pictures of their towns. I love California and we have visited 3 times now. San Diego is our favorite place to vacation right now. I love California weather….just gorgeous. I wish I had a post and pictures already done to join this linky party. I’ll try, but I don’t think I will make the 2 days left mark. But I should blog about my town and state. It is all I really know because I have never lived anywhere else. :)

  13. My boyfriend’s dad lives in Petaluma!! We went there Saturday night for dinner and on the drive into town, we kept talking about how much we loved that town and would maybe settle there one day (the BF is from Sonoma so we may eventually end up there). We’re practically neighbors, you know!! :)

  14. I have been reading this blog for awhile and always suspected that you lived in Petaluma too! Especially after the posts on the model homes. Love our little town!! Great post!

  15. I love Petaluma for Antiques! I lived in San Rafael for awhile and just moved to Windsor (no one besides you would know where the heck that is!!!) and I still love Petaluma for it’s “warm’ ambiance! People seem so friendly there! I love the street Antique Fair!

  16. Thank you for hosting the link party! This is so much fun – I love exploring through other towns via blog posts. Everyone tells it how it is and there is no sugar coating. Whenever my husband and I look to go somewhere I search blogs for the info.

    I’m hoping someone links up Colorado or Wyoming – my husband and I are thinking off moving out west at the beginning of the year!

    -Kelsey

  17. Oooh I love Petaluma! We took a trip out there several years ago and still reminisce about it! Lagunitas Brewing! Point Reyes! Santa Rosa! So many fun things to do. You are one lucky lady! And thanks for hosting the link party! I shared a favorite hike here in Central Oregon!

  18. Hey sorry, I accidentally put my name and a sideways photo on the links and couldn’t figure out how to delete it, so it looks like I double posted. Feel free to remove the erroneous one. :)

  19. I’m loving this link party. Not only am I finding out things I want to do in my hometown, I’m finding out places I’d love to travel. I love these outside-the-box link parties. Thank you so much for hosting!

  20. I knew you were in California wine country but I never knew exactly WHERE. Such a small world! I’m originally from CA, the East Bay area to be exact, but I went to college at Sonoma State University- so I know and love love love the area you live in! I’ve always wanted to go back and enjoy that area again. It’s got so much going on and is so lovely. :)

  21. I love your town too, Kate! One of my favorite within-driving-distance destination :) Love this post, and you made me realize I need to do one of these too. I just have bits of my town in a few different posts. Thanks for the linky party! xo

  22. What a small world…my Aunt and cousins live in Petaluma. My Aunt is now retired but she was a kindergarten teacher at Cinnabar for over 30 years. Such an awesome little town :)

  23. What a fun par-taay!
    Charming older homes with great “bones” always make me swoon!
    I shared some of my “hometown” house favorites.
    Thank you for hosting!
    Kerry at housetalkn.blogspot.com

  24. Bet you didn’t think you’d get a South Dakota post linked up! Or maybe you did… there’s not a lot of us!

    I love your pics of Northern Cali. My mom is from Humboldt County, so I visited up north almost every summer as a kid. Oh, the memories. It is truly a beautiful place!!!

    This was fun! Thanks for hosting!!!

    Rach H

  25. This is such a fun party idea! Thanks for hosting.

    I’ve been to your area of CA, but it has been a long time and I’d love to go back. The countryside is beautiful there!

  26. What a great idea for a party, Kate! I’ve visited a few already and plan to visit more of these amazing links. It’s great to get an inside look at the places where fellow bloggers live and love, and see places we might like to visit one day. Thanks so much for hosting! This was fun. :)

  27. Kate- such a brilliant idea for a link. I so enjoyed seeing and reading about your town as well as the others who shared. Was also quite proud to share about my own town (#14) and who’d have guessed that I’d ‘meet’ another blogger who’s practically down the street from me via YOUR site. I mean, what are the odds that 2 gals would both share what they love about Tuscaloosa, AL? Small world…

  28. Just found this party and don’t have anything to post yet but….I will be working on it! First will be the huge antique festival in the small town of Liberty NC September 23-24
    And I LOVE this idea for a party :)
    My amazing brother (we are from NC) is a writer in San Fran and just started a blog for fun – http://james-a-martin.blogspot.com about a Southerner in San Francisco

  29. I grew up in Mill Valley… and I have always loved Petaluma. I think if I ever moved back to the Bay Area… I would have to look there. I love the old theater. And I used to ride the bus all the way up on weekends with my girlfriends to check out the local punk shows at the Phoenix when I was a girl.

  30. My son and his wife visited your town in August and loved it! They fell in love with that part of California, and we enjoyed seeing all their photos :)

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