Attached is a picture of the Gobi Desert illuminated by the moon earlier this summer. Outside Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China, there's a little tourist industry grown up on the premise of showing city folk what the desert is like. The government controls access to the dunes pretty heavily (with expensive ticket prices or massive fees to tour operators), but one tour guide I talked to said that strict control was the only reason the sand isn't full of litter. With a cold wind blowing, the night gets downright chilling, especially, as on this night, when a strange and lost desert traveler startled us with songs as he was trying to find his way between cities. He was drawn to my flash (not used in this picture, of course). I wonder if he would ever have made it out of the desert without me taking pictures....