<a href="http://somewebsiteorother.com">The link</a>
<a href="http://somewebsiteorother.com" target="_blank">The link</a> 
A Navajo back yard behind the RV park, smack in the middle of Monument Valley:
The rock from which the town of Mexican Hat, Utah derives its name:
We had never heard of it, but when I saw the sign pointing to Valley of the Gods, I knew we had to go there. With a little imagination, this rock looks like a Southern belle:
This Navajo girl posed for me in front of Canyon de Chelly while her mom sat in a pickup truck weaving on a hand loom. Navajo spell the canyon “Tseyi,” and the pronunciation is roughly like “Shea.”
This article recently appeared in Southwest Senior.
We delayed our visit until we purchased our RV, then did a little web research that turned up Doc Campbell’s RV site in Gila Hot Springs, only a short distance from the dwellings. We eagerly planned our first trip. Of course we could have driven our car and stayed in a motel. Silver City is about 42 miles away, making it a good jumping-off point. A couple of small, no-frills campsites are also available between the Visitor’s Center and the trailhead. My wife and I chose to stay at Doc Campbell’s, with hookups for electricity, water, and—does life get any better than this?—a sewer connection. (To borrow a title from Willa Cather: O Pioneers!)
Not that the rest of Route 15 is a superhighway; it’s slow and winding, but worth it. Stop at the Visitor’s Center for information and books, or drive directly to the parking lot at the trailhead. From there you can see the magnificent cliffs. You’ll pay a nominal admission charge of $3 per person (cash and exact change required), unless you have a Golden Age pass. Knowledgeable volunteer docents cheerfully answer questions and chat with visitors. Twice daily, they offer free guided tours beginning at the dwellings. Just cross a footbridge over the Gila River, and you’re on your way.
Die-hard Red Sox fan and booster of the arts Dave Douillette recently found his mother Ruth’s copy of When Pigs Fly and intends to bring it with him to college, where he hopes it will fulfill his lit requirement. “This is an awesome book,” the sophomore said, noting the tome’s heft and bright colors. “I definitely might read it.”
My second novel, Getting Lucky, is progressing with iUniverse; it’s in the queue for an editorial evaluation. Meanwhile, the photo at the right is the Pawtucket Canal in Lowell, Massachusetts, and will be the book’s cover. I purchased this photo from Lee Fortier. See more of his excellent work at his website.
Monument, with interesting and accessible Indian ruins.
asked for permission to walk around the yard and photograph it. The owner, a 30-something fellow, said he built it himself out of old tires, baled hay, and other recycled materials. Much of the living space is below ground, and some of the other houses have large banks of dirt around them for insulation. He said his heating costs run about $100 per year for propane. No one can blame this fellow for the energy crisis.
We also found the Rio Grande Gorge, where the river looks mighty compared to its peaceful flow through Las Cruces. I stood on the bridge and took a photo of the breathtaking view hundreds of feet below. That evening at the 
motel, we turned on the news to learn that a man had just leaped off the bridge; originally, he had been thought to be wearing a parachute that failed to open, but instead he had a backpack and a suicide note.
the Navajo Nation, and we paid $3 per person to see a circular marker with an “X” in the middle, marking the exact intersection of four states. People stood in line, waiting their turn to stand on the spot, but we were content to watch and to visit a few of the Navajo vendors whose booths surrounded the spot. At the right, this fellow’s left hand is in Utah, his right hand in Arizona; his left foot is in Colorado, and his right foot is in New Mexico.
Civil War buffs and historical fiction fans will enjoy this novel with its authentic and unusual take on the conflict. Based on historical incidents and real people, first-time author Jack Shakely brings us a view of the war from the point of view of Jack Gaston, a member of the Creek Nation who serves the Confederate cause. Gaston, one of two college-educated Creeks, leaves his studies at Harvard University in 1863 to serve his people, who have allied themselves with the South. For the many tribes that appear in this story—including Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek—the main issue is not slavery or keeping the Union together—it’s survival. They must do what they can to preserve their own interests in the face of ever-increasing white encroachment....Maxey wrote to all the soldiers, “Your action has been glorious. You have made yourself a name in history.”
This of course was true. To borrow a phrase from Franklin Roosevelt it was a name made in the history of infamy.
Nothing in American musical history is quite so cringingly, wincingly embarrassing as the mistrel show. But this phenomenon of white men in blackface was a theater tradition for more than a hundred years in this country, lasting well into the twentieth century. The vicious racist stereotyping...
It was 1985, and my 13-year stint in customer service had mercifully ended. I was determined to change my career to technical writing, but every potential employer wanted applicants to show both academic credentials and a writing portfolio. So I enrolled in a technical communications program at the University of Massachusetts, and took on all the freelance writing assignments I could find—for free when necessary, as long as I garnered at least a byline.
In July, I kissed my family goodbye and boarded an Iceland Air flight to Luxembourg, where Gunther himself picked me up and drove us across Germany’s heartland at about 110 miles per hour on the darkened Autobahn. My obvious terror amused him. At a restaurant stop, a waitress complimented me on my German, though I had stumbled through all three or four words in my vocabulary. In a highway rest room, a woman sold toilet paper by the sheet.
Gunther had arranged for me to stay with a young family who lived across from his business in a tiny farm town, so for a month, my commute was a 30-second walk to a vintage 1923 schoolhouse that Gunther and his two sons used for their business. After a breakfast of coffee, bread, and jam, I would cross the road, greet the sons (who’d gone to college in California and spoke excellent English), and go to the second floor. There I was typically alone with my computer station and my work, the window open to the smell of manure and the lowing of cows from the barnyard next door.
There were no restaurants nearby, and I had no car during the week, so Gunther’s wife served substantial evening meals. The nearest city was Fulda, a lovely city about the size of Las Cruces. I’d read about the “Fulda gap” in Tom Clancy's novel Red Storm Rising—it was the invasion route for Soviet armies. On Saturday mornings, one of Gunther’s sons drove me to a car rental shop where I rented a vehicle and headed out on my own for the weekend.
My automotive jaunts took me through beautiful, rustic villages to the barbed-wire border where signs warned of unexploded land mines. Few of the locals outside of my work spoke any English, yet I generally conveyed what I needed by smiling and pointing—and occasionally looking desperate. Trucks with names on their sides like Mengele and Krupp reminded me that this beautiful country and friendly people had a dark past.
One weekend I drove to the Rhine River and boarded a tourist boat. We passed postcard-worthy towns, bucolic vineyards, and three dozen castles before turning around at the base of a massive cliff named Lorelei’s Rock.
Another weekend took me to Berlin, which meant driving through communist East Germany. At one point I pulled to the side of the highway, thinking I could help a stranded motorist. After many gestures, he conveyed that he wanted me to tow his car somewhere. I pictured this destroying my rental car, so I gave him a ride to the nearest telephone instead. I was only willing to go so far for world peace.
West Berlin was inexpensive, because I slept in the car. My weekly pay was thick in my wallet, making me constantly self-conscious. Most of this money had to come home with me to Massachusetts to pay bills. I stood at the edge of a crowd, watching a Middle-Eastern con artist run a shell game. He was good. I always thought I knew which shell the pea was under, and I was always wrong. A lot of people lost money, but I held tightly onto my wallet, fearing I’d be scammed or robbed.
The Berlin Wall near Checkpoint Charlie was a mass of grafitti, colorful and chaotic; I stood on a platform and looked into East Berlin, which seemed gray and sterile. Later that day, I inadvertently cut off a motorcyclist in traffic. Oops. He was a police officer, and he pulled me over. Since I couldn’t appear in court, I had to pay my 30 Deutschmark fine directly to him. Then on my way back, of course I had to drive through East Germany again, where another police officer flagged me down and ticketed me for speeding. Unlike in the decadent West, the East Germans had strict speed limits on their autobahn—and they had speed traps. For my part, I had receipts for traffic fines from both countries. The receipts became souvenirs.
My first technical writing assignment was completed in a month, and I missed my family considerably. My wife and eleven-year-old son Jeff greeted me on my arrival back in Boston, and they told me they had recently seen Back to the Future at a theater. “Well, we’ll have to see it again,” I said. “The three of us.”
It’s a small graveyard with freshly painted epitaphs on wood markers. Like almost everything in town, it is maintained for the benefit of the tourists who keep the town alive. Now, folks can tour the town in horse-drawn wagons.
—and when they’re through, they can whet their whistles at Big Nose Kate’s, a saloon named after the girlfriend of Doc Holliday:
Above is the view from a specially-built stand that provides a better sense of the breadth of this amazing bush. Here is the trunk:
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