September 6, 2010
Fields
Fields is so far out in the desert -- it's about 50 miles south of Frenchglen -- that airplanes occasionally land on the highway, pull in to the gas station, and tank up right from the pumps. The tiny town has a great cafe, which serves cheeseburgers and milkshakes and keeps track of the numbers sold each year on a scoreboard. Across the highway from the cafe is a tree-lined pond, sometimes called the Fields oasis, where you can almost always find great-horned owls.
It's not far from here to Borax Lake. Fields makes a great lunch stop on the all-day drive from Burns down the east side of Steens Mountain, past the Alvord Desert, around the bottom end of the mountain and back up the west side through Frenchglen. Venture south about 25 miles and you reach Denio, and the end of the universe. Well, Nevada..
Photo: Private plane at Fields
all text and images © 2005-06 by Bob Keefer
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