I drove to Lake Sonoma Sunday. It's a drive of an hour 50 minutes via highway 37. The site is at at an elevation of around 1,000 feet, and is a parking lot off the road.
Car lights are an occasional hazard.
I told her that I would and invited her to return. Whiie there are a few distant lights in the valley adjacent, they were barely noticeable. The remarkable thing about this site is the incredible transparency of the air. Yet, in my telescope at 158x, the spiral structure was clearlt visible, as was the arm connecting to the adjacent galaxy. The view was not as good as it was at HGO when M51 is at the zenith, but not far.