Our daughter and two grandsons joined us for the weekend in Pismo, so we decided to just do one hike this trip instead of our usual two. After contemplating doing Bishop Peak again and some other options, we settled on Johnson Ranch, a 200+ acre open space preserve located along Hwy 101 just south of San Luis Obispo. Being only 10 minutes from our trailer, it was certainly convenient, and at a planned distance of 3.7 miles, it was short enough that we could squeeze it in early Saturday morning and save the day for family stuff. Johnson Ranch is basically a shallow valley that runs westward from the freeway and is bisected by a private ranch road that is not part of the designated trail area. The area is serviced by a loop trail running up one side of the valley and back down the other, although there is an option to extend the loop by adding a second loop northward into and out of an adjacent drainage. Although there is only 200′ of difference between the trail’s highest and lowest elevations, we were surprised by how often the trail changed its gradient, gaining and losing that 200′ several times. We arrived at the busy trailhead about 8:15am and immediately headed out, choosing to complete the loop in a counterclockwise direction. The trail ran briefly west before switching back east to provide views across the freeway to fog rolling over the tops of the Santa Lucia mountains to the northeast. Turning west again, we quickly came to the turn for the additional northern loop, which we took, and began to descend quickly into an oak-filled ravine. We had passed several runners traveling in both directions, but as we began to climb out of the ravine, we were passed by several parties of mountain bikers – definitely a mixed-use trail. The northernmost point of this additional loop is where the trail crosses the ravine and turns back south along the western boundary of this drainage, emerging from the oak forest to more open grassland. Upon regaining the main trail, we turned west again, eventually descending on curvy switchbacks (most certainly routed for cyclists) toward the ranch road. We could see a small house and a larger barn below us to the west, and we passed just to the east of this property as we turned south and crossed a small creek. Jane alerted Chris to several clumps of poison oak along the creek which helped him give them a particularly wide berth, and we crossed the ranch road for the home stretch down the valley’s south side. We climbed up and away from the road to be rewarded with beautiful views across the area to Islay Hill at the head of Edna Valley to the northeast. After reaching the trail’s highpoint, we gradually descended to the trailhead, paralleling the ranch road at the finish. Although we had seen the mileage called out elsewhere as 3.7 miles for this route, our GPS measured just under 3.4, and we covered that distance in just 62 minutes for an average moving speed of 3.3 mph. Both of our expectations were exceeded by this hike – what we thought would be somewhat boring and simple turned out to be interesting and variable in the ever-changing views and terrain. Chris was breaking in new hiking shoes (Merrell Moab Ventilators, which performed very well), and this hike was the perfect test lab in which to put them through their paces. Definitely four thumbs up on this one.