The village of Doña Ana is rather like a pile of pickup sticks with the streets intersecting at unexpected angles. In the old part of town, the adobe houses are clustered around a small, mission-style church. There is a new plaza with a fountain and a statue beside the church, and some renovation of the old houses in progress. Around that small island of hope to rescue the past, however, is a spreading sea of new houses. The train track runs straight past the west side; a lot of freight flows by, but there's no reason to stop as there was when the train was the main way for people to move quickly up and down the Rio Grande valley. At the east end of town are three gas stations, a dollar store in a little strip mall, and a new highway overpass.