1.   The Rotunda Room has a broad floor of cracked mud, which turns into a lake during periods of heavy rain.

2.   There, on land once covered water, lay a parched plain of cracked mud and rocks.

3.   Now they are parched with cracked mud.

4.   On Monday, Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will step onto the flattened wasteland of cracked mud and rocks at the base of Casitas.