Independence

Betsy Ross' house, Philadelphia, summer 2006

World War II memorial, Washington, D.C., November 2005

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emmanuel Leutze, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 2005

Macy's fireworks from FDR Drive, July 4, 2006

At first it's no more than a haze on the horizon. So you watch. You watch. Then it's a smudge, a shadow on the far water. For a day; for another day. The stain slowly spreads along the horizon, taking form, until on the third day you let yourself believe, you dare to whisper the word: Land. Land. Life. Resurrection. The true adventure. Coming out of the vast unknown, the immensity, into new life. That, Your Majesty, is the New World.
Sir Walter Raleigh in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"