Sunset Schmunset

The title's a bit misleading here; I absolutely love and respect the glorious sunsets of rural life, or desert life, or big-sky life, or whatever works in sunset's favor here.  But check this out.

It rained on Wednesday - seriously.  A two- or three-minute drip in the morning, and then a vigorous downpour for five or six minutes.  Then the sky cleared and was brilliant cerulean for hours.  But at mid-afternoon, it started to get dark, and then it started to rain.  Not hard, but steadily.  Off and on a bit, but on for hours.  A decent wet.  (I think that might be what some Irish people call a glass of whiskey.)  Enough, you would think - if you're a dreamy and idealistic naïf - to turn the desert green.  So I set off on Thursday evening to stroll the desert, looking for vigorous, if short-lived, new growth and shoots and flowers and whatever.  Ha!  Poor me; I got the usual sand and rocks and brownish scrub.  Pfui.  I mean, beautiful in its own way and everything, but.  Not green.  Not especially vibrant.  And all the clouds had cleared well out so the sunset was especially low-key.  So I turned slowly to the east, and saw

Oh, yeah.  Days and nights are pretty even here, just 20 degrees or so from the equator, and I have missed the dramatic moonrises of my 40-degrees-from-the-equator native land.  As we get deeper toward winter, I'll try to remind myself to be on the lookout.  It was worth seeing - as per, much more profound seen live than in the photos.

The setting sun, behind us, has colored the rocks and sand red.

In case you were wondering - the western view