That was the first question out of my granddaughter’s mouth as we started out hike this morning. I just knew this was going to be a wonderful outing.

My son and family, my daughter and her baby and I joined three other intrepid hikers this morning to scout for wild flowers along the trail to Striped Rock. Here’s a shot of our group: Ben, Jan, Evie and the Salonen family.

The hike was sponsored by the Sierra Foothill Conservancy link which helps preserve spots like this for future generations by working with landowners who still want to be able to use their land for grazing but don’t want to see it broken up for development. My heartfelt thanks to these landowners and the hard-working people at SFC for allowing us access to this gorgeous area. We hiked for several miles and encountered nearly every wildflower on our list. We also spotted a big, beautiful deer, and we learned a lot, too.

For instance, did you know that the wild flower called the shooting star first opens it beautiful, delicate foliage pointing up–as a way of attracting bees, but once it’s been pollinated, its slender stem bends over. And it really does look like a shooting star.

It also never hurts to hike with handsome young men–romance writers thrive on this kind of stuff. Especially really great guys like Ben and Jon Paul.

So…are highways better than low-ways? I’d have to say, “No!” But sometimes high roads give you a great view of the place you were hiking to. In the distance, you can see Striped Rock. We actully wound up enjoying a picnic in a beautiful meadow half a mile from our destination, and then couldn’t talk the little hikers into going on, so we headed back to the car. Oh, well, it was a great hike just the same.

Tomorrow, I’ll be giving you info on the 100,000 Book Challenge. I know some of you are already involved, but I’m joining tomorrow and I hope to raise some interest in it. We all read, let’s put our passion to work to help others.

Deb