The Alvord Desert

Stepping out onto the Alvord Desert, the driest part of Oregon, all I heard was the buzzing of a yellow jacket and the intermittent howling of the wind. The surface was so very dry, with the occasional rock here and there (always bigger than a pebble, but usually not much). When the wind wasn’t blowing, I heard utter silence. Not a bird or mammal was in sight. Eventually, we came across bits of a partially eaten hare, which surprised me because I didn’t think a hare would want to go out on this flat, dry, plant-free surface. Another possibility is that a coyote or some other creature killed the hare elsewhere and took it to this dry place. Far, far in the distance were mountains on every side. To the right, I saw in the far distance, in front of the mountains, what looked like a stretch of shiny blue water and what was probably a mirage. It had to be a mirage. Behind us were the mountains we’d been seeing from the road over and over again. I kept walking, stopping to admire the strange patterns of the cracks in the surface of the earth—it was such dry, dry earth, such pale dirt (or sand?), and some of the cracks were quite big. Some of the cracks went around rocks. Eventually I saw—perhaps an optical illusion?—a section of the earth looked like it was bright yellow, in the near distance. I lost track of time and distance, swept up with the setting and dropping off into thoughts of a desert kingdom in my middle grade series The Rowanwick Chronicles. I decided I’d change the way I describe that land.