America the Beautiful, Fourth of July

Celebrating America the Beautiful

Happy (early) Fourth of July! We hope you’ve been enjoying a relaxing long weekend full of friends and barbecue and outdoor adventures and ice cream and fireworks.

Speaking of fireworks, if you’re watching a public show, then it’s likely set to the soundtrack of patriotic songs. And if you listen closely to the lyrics over the boom of the colorful explosions in the sky, you’ll hear that a good portion of the songs mention our diverse lands.

Which is no coincidence. As outdoors lovers, we all know how breathtaking our country is. We marvel at the rugged mountains we hike, gaze up at the desert stone we climb, respect the roaring rivers we paddle. So it should come as no surprise that Katharine Lee Bates began “America the Beautiful” by mentioning our spacious skies, or that Irving Berlin, writer of “God Bless America,” felt compelled to put his appreciation for our lands on paper.

With all the battles we are currently fighting to protect our public lands, this Fourth of July is an especially important time to appreciate our country and what beauty we have within it. So whether you’re biting into a hot dog this weekend, noshing on some potato salad, or chomping on trail mix, take a moment to realize that, yeah, America really is beautiful.

America the Beautiful, Fourth of July

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 crowned thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

America the Beautiful, Fourth of July

From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam