Back to the Quiet Roads: Borrego Springs
After three straight weeks of airports, hotel lobbies, and conference rooms—Jacksonville, Thomasville, Newport, LA, Seattle, Raleigh, DC, Nashville—I found myself unexpectedly grounded. A four-day run through Toronto, Boston, and New York was wiped clean by Winter Storm Fern. Flights canceled. Plans paused. A rare gift disguised as disruption. So I did what I almost always do when life hits the brakes: I got on my Triumph.
A short loop from La Quinta out to Borrego Springs is hardly epic by distance, but it’s epic in what it offers. The open stretch of S22. The sudden drop into Anza-Borrego’s wide silence. The metal giants—Galleta Meadows’ massive sculptures rising out of the sand like forgotten guardians. Fonts Point, where the badlands look like a planet still being formed. The kind of place that reminds you how small your calendar really is.
Mid-70s. Blue sky. No notifications. No gate changes. Just the hum of the road and the feeling of space returning to my nervous system. After weeks of motion dictated by schedules, storms forced stillness—and the desert gave me something better: perspective. Not every journey needs a boarding pass. Some of the most important ones start five minutes from your driveway.
Grateful for cancellations. Grateful for quiet. Grateful for roads that lead nowhere in particular and exactly where I needed to be.
