America the Beautiful

in patriotic •  7 years ago 

"America the Beautiful" is an American patriotic song written by Katharine Lee Bates. Bates originally wrote the words as a poem, "Pikes Peak".
Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College, had taken a train trip to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to teach a short summer school session at Colorado College. Several of the sights on her trip inspired her, including the view of the Great Plains from high atop Pikes Peak.
While on the mountain the words of the poem started to come to her, and she wrote them down upon returning to her hotel room.

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Pikes Peak is the highest summit of the southern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, in North America. It is located in Pike National Forest, 12.0 miles west by south of downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado.

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Pikes Peak Cog Railway base station is in Manitou Springs, in Colorado climbing the well-known mountain Pikes Peak.

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Pikes Peak Cog Railway, the highest train in the US.

Date of operation: 1889

Length: 8.9 mi (14.3 km)

Track gauge: 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge

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The altitude pressure changing can get to some people. I remember my water bottle sprung a leak when I got to the top. I guess it had a small hole in it and the pressure change made it leak. After I loosened the cap it was OK.

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@pastorike
You are getting closer to Heaven when you get that high. I think we are less than one thousand feet here where I am. So at 14,110 feet altitude. That is way up there. Ha

Francis