These are the downtowns of Juarez and El Paso, as seen from the 5,800-foot Franklin Mountains. The tall buildings on the left are in El Paso; the smoky part is Juarez. Despite the smoke, you can how it flows like one big city.

And apparently they are tied closer than I thought. Silly me, I thought it was difficult to enter the U.S. if you're Mexican. Perhaps not, based on this tidbit from the "El Paso Times" newspaper on Halloween morning: "People who cross the border from Mexico to trick-or-treat in El Paso today should wait until they are in the United States to put on masks and makeup, officials with Customs and Border Protection said." I wonder why they have those long lines for visas if it's convenient enough to cross for candy....

By the way, we did not do anything Mexican for the Day of the Dead yesterday. We didn't even taste any "dead bread," which I gather is something tasty that's made only one day of the year.

Finally, I forgot on Tuesday to note what kind of costumes were popular in our neighborhood. We saw the same thing you would in the U.S.: superheroes, cowboys, skeletons, etc.

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