In the fall everything in the valley turned orange. This edge of a cultivated field lent itself to an explosion design. The light at the end of the day made everything shiny.
Away from the cultivated Rio Grande valley, a depression in the desert can collect the very occasional rain with stunning results.
A few miles southeast of San Elizario is a border crossing into Mexico at San Isidro. I took that crossing, turned right, and within a mile or so I saw a lake in the desert. I sat up my easel and began to paint. In a few minutes a Mexican policeman approached and demanded to know what I was doing there. The lake was a lagoon for the municipal sewege plant for Juarez. I spoke Spanish. He said his uncle was a painter. We had a nice discussion about art. He went on his way, and I resumed painting.
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