If you happen to be an American with
sensibilities shaped by the howl of a wolf, the pastoral
tranquility of the Shenandoah Valley, or the spectral grandeur of
Second Mesa, this is your story. The protagonist in this story, as
stated or unstated in all epic tales that are truly American, is
the land itself, that unmapped landscape of paradoxes where
boundless optimism and limitless possibility ran up against a
bulwark of human appetites, competing desires, differing world
views, and intractable conflicts. The 'places' described here are
just a few of the many where the citizens of a young nation began
to write its story.