Where the Sunset Draws a Crowd

On Saturday, I drove back to Alamogordo from Artesia on Highway 82. Doing this meant driving from a high, flat plain, then rising gently into the Sacramento Mountains, peaking at about 9000 feet, then starting a more precipitous descent down the western side of the range, onto the high desert.

The cumulative effect of passing through so much beauty of different forms can be overwhelming.  

In the mountains, the smell of pine saturated the air.

Where it had been stifling hot in Artesia, it became almost chilly in Mayhill, where I stopped for dinner and became an audience member at a roadside summer concert. 

I left at dusk, continuing west on Highway 82, toward Alamogordo. As I passed High Rolls, a spectacular sunset began to emerge.

After going through the Lincoln tunnel, it was imperative that I stop at the adjacent scenic overlook. Just to watch the sunset. I wasn't the only one. There were people already there when I arrived, and more pulled in after me, just to see the orangey-pink-yellow-red streamers over the San Andres Mountains on the west side of the Tularosa Basin.

A woman standing next to me said, "It makes you believe in God just to look at it."

Sunset over the San Andres Mountains, across from Tularosa Basin, New Mexico