“The Valley of the Fox"

We have located “The Valley of the Fox” ! 

Well, we have located a valley that looks plausible as a location for the Rock and Cloud Villages in “The Trail of the Fox”.  It may seem strange, but rather than picking a setting before I began to write, I first conceived the idea and started the story.  I based it on my travels through New Mexico in the past, sometimes hunting, sometimes skiing, sometimes just driving through. 

But after writing the first 2/3 of the book, I thought about the need to pick a certain location, to see if it would be a practical, workable setting.  In particular question was the ability of, the likelihood of, the Rock and Cloud people walking down out of their valley with The Trader, in search of The Walking Men (which happens in Part II of the book).

So, I began with www.maps.google.com, and searched an area which I thought might provide mountainous terrain, with flowing streams and a river to follow down onto The Flat.   In particular, the location had to be close enough to the edge of the Great Plains to make a meeting of plains dwelling Walking Men and the mountain dwelling Rock and Cloud people a plausible occurrence.

With a short search, starting with the Santa Fe National Forest in north-central New Mexico, just east of the city of Santa Fe, I found an interesting valley.  If you look at Highway 63, going north from Pecos, New Mexico, you see that it runs north into the National Forest, until it ends there.  It is this main valley, and the side valleys that feed into it, that I feel makes an excellent candidate for the valley of the Rock and Cloud people.

The streams in the valley form the headwaters of the Pecos River, and the river flows out at the town of Pecos, turning east for a bit toward the flat, the Great Plains.  The Pecos continues south and east, finally joining the Rio Grande in western Texas.  Since the wintering area that I propose for the Walking Men (Seminole Canyon State Park, Texas) is very near where the Pecos River joins the Rio Grande, near the town of Del Rio, Texas, I think this makes it also plausible that the Walking might follow the Pecos north in the spring time as the grass begins to grow, and the buffalo head north to graze.

My wife, Brenda, and I flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico and drove the 60 miles or so up to Santa Fe.  We stayed in Santa Fe for a couple of days while looking at both Highway 63 and at Highway 475 which heads northeast from Santa Fe into and also ending in, the Santa Fe National Forest.  We also drove along Interstate 25 East from Santa Fe, towards Las Vegas, New Mexico, on the edge of the plains.  We noted several points along the way which looked like plausible way-points for the Rock and Cloud people on their trading mission.  We ended at the Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge, an 8700 acre migratory bird sanctuary, which provided some nice photos of the plains, uninterrupted by (modern) human activity.

We would definitely recommend a stay in Santa Fe to anyone interested in traveling to New Mexico.  There is a long standing, active arts community there, ranging from formal galleries, informal outdoor exhibitions to street vendors.  The town is beautiful with most architecture following guidelines for the use of adobe and stucco construction with Mexican roof tile.  Late September is an excellent time to see the turning fall colors in a beautiful and very interesting part of the American West.

-       Mark W. Laughlin

All photos by MWL

Cool Buildings



Empire State Building, New York City



Some buildings are cool 

because they are really tall.

Some buildings are cool for where they are.

Seven Falls, Colorado Springs, Colorado

.



Model of Notre Dame, Paris

Even tiny buildings can be cool.

 

Russian Orthodox Church, Tallinn, Estonia

Churches can be quite beautiful.



Flower Shop, near the City Wall, Tallinn

               Some buildings are cool on more than one level...

                                                                   ...or from more than one angle.         

Bankia Building, Madrid, Spain



Old State House, St. Louis, Missouri

 

Sometimes old and new sit right together.

Castle in Japan, taken from the "Bullet Train"

Some sit for centuries while we race by.



Church near Sussex Street, London

Some sit silently on a side street.



Just a red brick building, New York City

Some are surrounded by color…

...while others hide themselves in the clouds.

Crawford at Walker Street, Houston, Texas

Parliment, London

Some stand tall and proud, no matter what...

...others stand only in our memories.

Lower Manhattan, where the Twin Towers should be standing, New York

 

Buildings are some of my favorite subjects.

-       Mark W. Laughlin

All photos by MWL

September 11

I added a couple of thoughts below:

Brenda and I visited New York City back in 2008.

We walked down to Wall Street...

...and to Ground Zero.

They were still cleaning up rubble,

A Globe sculpture that had stood in the plaza and had been crushed by falling debris

was set up off to the side.

Children of "First Responders", Firemen, Police and others, 

had painted tiles honoring their parents who died in the attack,

and hung them on this fence.

A view of Lower Manhattan, shrouded on fog,

is missing two tall landmarks.

Occasionally, as I have heard interviews of New Yorkers who were present on September 11, 2001, I hear remarks about the attacks on "their city", attacks on "them".  If I had the chance, I would argue with them, gently, and with great respect, that the attacks happened to all Americans.  New York was unlucky enough to be one of the central targets for jihadi aggression, but the attackers were targeting "America".  They were targeting all Americans.  The attacks happened to all of us.  That takes nothing away from the way we feel about New Yorkers.  Much to the contrary, we stand beside every one of them in the way we feel about the attacks, in the way we remember them.

This was kicking around my mind last night, but I couldn't figure out how to craft it, given the late hour.  But there is another thought that should be expressed:

In as much as the attacks were not on New Yorkers alone as much as they were on all Americans, there is another group that should be considered, and that is "everybody else".  By that, I mean that we should separate the world into "the (actual) bad guys" and "everybody else".  As time wore on, we saw horrible attacks in London, Madrid, Mumbai and more recently Copenhagen.  But even before 9-11-2001, we saw huge attacks in East Africa, and so many other places around the world.  The September 11 attacks were attacks on everyone who ins't themselves a "bad guy".  That's everyone around the world who travels, or who waits at home while their loved ones do...everyone who participates in the War on Terror, and all of their families and loved ones...it's everyone who has friends in other parts of the world, and who watch the news nervously anytime something blows up...if you are one of the good guys, then the attacks on New York were attacks on you.

The whole world came together in the days after September 11, in a way that only seems to happen after an event that effects literally everyone.  The whole world felt a connection with those who had suffered, and the whole world could envision something just as horrible happening in their home town.  We have drifted away from that feeling of solidarity in recent years.  Of course, that has to be expected I suppose, but I would like to see us achieve that feeling again, that is, if it doesn't take a huge, awful event to catalyze it.

As September 11, 2011 approaches, I recall the time I had been in the World Trade Center in 1999.  We had a customer located on the 95th Floor of Tower Two.  I still have vivid memories of looking out the window and down onto the Brooklyn Bridge, on an absolutely beautiful day.  Our customer, Bob, didn't make it out of the building in 2001.  I think I share New Yorker's tendency to take the attacks very personally.

Some say we in America cannot get over the attacks of September 11, cannot get passed it, cannot move on.  I do not agree.  I think the point is, we will not forget.  Period.  My feelings about that day are stirred every time I see images of the attacks, hear accounts of the victims, or hear news about losses of our young men and women in the Military, as they pursue the bad guys.  More than that, it's whenever I see our flag flying, hear patriotic music, or see one of our fighter jets screaming overhead.  I can guarantee that I will not forget.

Robert (Bob) D'Angelis

- Mark W. Laughlin

11-September-2011


All photos by MWL.