The drought is very obvious up here, in yellowed grass and a heartbreaking lot of dead and dying trees. The mountains around Tucson are presumably no better off, but in the well-irrigated city we're shielded from the worst of it. The forest is closed, and the observatory grounds are strictly no-smoking and haunted by bears.
The observatory always reminds me of the original Myst game, with strange-shaped buildings looming among the pine and fir trees. It's still a beautiful place, with stunning if hazy views over the Tularosa basin from the ridge where the telescopes stand, but it has a rather sad and withered look now.
On the way back down to the village this evening, we saw several elk, big solid brown beasts with pale rumps; one had a fairly impressive set of antlers. We paused at a viewpoint and watched the sun set over the mountains on the other side of the Tularosa basin, with the White Sands glimmering in the middle distance and a shadowy green canyon in the foreground, and a couple of birds singing a repetitive, two-note duet among the trees. The sky was mostly clear, with just a few gilt-edged clouds above the horizon, and the sun was a perfect circle of red-gold fire in a field of smooth rose.
Very tired now. Also my camera batteries are completely flat.
