02-13-2026 Ogilby Road

The fire pit at our camp on Ogilby Road

I have a bit more to write about our last week in Desert Hot Springs. A few day trips, a few dinners with friends, a bit more to share. But in the dark this morning, the memories that fill my soul are of our time on Ogilby Road.

I need to write it, to feel it, to remember the silence of it.

As I watch the snow in the blue dawn light, I feel that silence too, but in such a different way. With the snow comes all that goes with living in beautiful Oregon. Soft wet white clouds weighing down the tree branches. Little footprints in a wavering line from the lower fence up to Mo’s workshop.

It is skunk season, and they love the dry, warm darkness beneath the oldest wooden building on the property. After calling a “critter gitter,” there are two fewer skunks wandering at night, but the tracks prove there are more out there.

Spring flowers are trying to burst through the snow in spite of the weather. Overgrown perennials, never trimmed last fall, are brown and weighted down along the sidewalk. Roses unpruned in January as usual are still tall and gangly, with rotted buds and brown leaves sagging under snow and rain. It may be silent outside, but the work that needs to be done makes a very loud noise inside my mind.

To do. To do. To do.

It is easy to feel small in the desert

Ogilby Road isn’t scenic in the postcard way. It’s not red rock cathedral or alpine lake. It’s open, spare, almost austere. “Incredibly beautifully nothing” is the only way I know to describe how it feels. Desert pavement. The tiniest flowers in the gravel. Sky that stretches from horizon to horizon.

Ogilby is the kind of horizon that doesn’t ask anything of me.

It offers almost no variables. No decisions. No noise. Just surface and sky and weather doing what it does. It is a forced silence, the quieting of the noisy mind I spent years trying to learn. I don’t find this quiet in the forests and mountains or on the wild, raucous coast.

On Ogilby, an inner stillness happens like nowhere else.
And I return to it on purpose. That’s not accidental. That’s ritual.

The fact that it rained this year felt like a small blessing. We have traveled to Ogilby many times and never before had rain. It was a soft, steady rain, gently tapping on the roof. Quiet.

Some places are scenic. Some places are stimulating. And some places are regulating. Ogilby is regulating for me.

Mattie is always a little bit overwhelmed when we first arrive on Ogilby road.

The visual simplicity of a low horizon, a muted palette, of long distances reduces input. My nervous system doesn’t have to scan for traffic, conversation, social cues, decisions. Even the ground is simple: gravel, wash, sky. Nothing to interpret. Nothing to do.

No mental lists. I am simply here.

Once she adjusts to the open space, Mattie loves the desert too

Mo and I questioned the choice to drive more than 150 miles each way just to experience the silent emptiness of Ogilby this year. We had planned to stay longer, but the predicted storms changed our plans. We knew we had to travel quickly to get home before the snow stopped us. Chains on the MoHo over Mt. Shasta and the Siskiyous are not an option.

It was perfect. We drove only a few miles south of the intersection of Highway 78 and Ogilby Road before finding our place. Perfectly level. A low berm separates us from the pavement. Not a soul in sight for miles.

We found the desert fairy duster in this gentle wash

When the morning rains cleared on our second day, we found Calliandra eriophylla, desert fairy duster. The pink powder-puff “flowers”, actually masses of long stamens, looked like little desert fireworks. Even though it is a fairly common desert plant, I had never seen one before.

Desert Fairy Duster

Walking quietly with the dog in the open landscape, we found tiny treasures.

Blooming in the gravel were several plants of Eremalche rotundifolia, desert five-spot.

Tucked between the rocks we found Phacelia distans, wild heliotrope. The toe of Mo’s boot shows just how small it is.

Another tiny wonder was Monoptilon bellioides, Mojave Desert star.

Desert sunflowers lit up the open spaces with their brilliance

Mo built a fire each evening and we cooked and ate our meal as we watched the sunset.

Sunset was long and slow and filled our time after supper with brilliant color.

I need this place to remember what it is to be quiet when the busyness of everyday life returns.

The light of our fire reflecting on the MoHo