America the Beautiful

Saturday, 13 June 2015
Peregrine Pines FamCamp; USAFA, Colorado Springs — Colorado
Temps: Hi 77F (25C) / Lo 48F (9C)

O beautiful for spacious skies … For amber waves of grain … For purple mountain majesties … Above the fruited plain! … America!  America! … God shed His grace on thee … And crown thy good with brotherhood … From sea to shining sea. …

Thus goes the opening stanza to one of America’s most patriotic songs — America the Beautiful … although if you’re like me, you’ll be surprised to learn that the words have changed some since Katherine Lee Bates first wrote the poem in 1893.  (All three versions are in the Wikipedia article I linked to above.)

So what does this beautiful song have to do with what we did today?  Aside from the fact, that is, that Bates was inspired to write the words after a visit to Pikes Peak, which towers over Colorado Springs (CoS) and is visible from almost everywhere you go in and around town … including USAFA (photo above)!