Today we get the opportunity to go with Sierra Club Jim as he recreates for us a traditional annual hike that other chapters hold once a year. We drive to Cal City and up Highway 58 to Cameron Road, and south for our rally point.
The trail takes us gradually up the slopes and through the windmill farm. As the morning progresses, the wind picks up. We watch the windmills figure out when to start and stop, so that they generate the most power. This is the subject of much discussion at our lunch stop -- hiking with engineers is always fun.
In our first two hours on the trail, we see the occasional flower or seedpod. The seedpods of loco weed are numerous in the first field we cross. 
Higher up, we walk through a herd of sheep, grazing below the windmills. They're pretty skittish - they run away across the trail in front of us, and then behind us as we move along.
On around the hillside, we find a lovely prickly poppy, one of the few I've seen this year. We stop early for lunch, and eat amid the song of the tall mills, grinding away. The noise, we are told, is the drive train and generator in the mill. It's not too loud, just persistent. 
We have fun watching the mills start and stop as the wind shifts. I take a detour and find a lush apricot mallow.
On the trail again, we move into flower country. 
The hillsides are blue with thousands of tiny gilia and big clumps of lupine. Many of these are grape-soda lupine, and they really, truly smell like grape soda/lollipop/koolaid -- take your pick. It is truly beautiful. And a camera just does not see it the same as the human eye. Maybe I need to photoshop my pictures?
We finish with a series of twelve long, relatively flat switchbacks, down to the place where Jim has parked his car. He ferries the drivers back to our rally point, and we disband to go home. An easy, enjoyable six miles.
Retired Miles (cumulative since 1 August 2007): 177
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