“This land is your land, this land is my land, from California to the New York island.” July 4th always gets me in a patriotic mood. This year that mood has led me to ponder all the magnificent topography I’ve seen in my travels right here in the good ol’ US of A .
Oh, there are wonders abroad, too, mountains and rivers and shorelines. But it’s hard to think of any country anywhere that has the diversity of natural landscape that we do. Take the continental US spanning from the Atlantic to the Pacific, add Alaska and Hawaii, and you’ve got a land big and beautiful in so many different ways.
I’ve culled these photos from my travel scrapbooks. For more details, check out my column, http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/Patsy-Pridgen/2018/07/08/America-is-a-land-of-many-sights-and-cultures
Redwoods in California, 2010
Smoke from Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii, 2008
Monument Valley, Arizona, 2013
Grand Canyon, Arizona, 2013
Glacier Bay, Alaska, 2016
Miami Beach, Florida, 2018
Volcanoes, deserts, glaciers, valleys, beaches–these different landscapes represent different ways of life, even different cultures. For example, in Hawaii, I ate poi at a luau; in Alaska, salmon at a fishing lodge. Miami Beach had a Hispanic vibe; Arizona, a Native American influence.
But vive la difference! We’re all Americans, privileged to live in the most diversely beautiful country in the world.
Told you I was in a patriotic mood.
Patsy Pridgen 