PIKES PEAK

Looking from my office on the Air Force Academy...this is what I have to look at everyday...What a blessing

PIKES PEAK

Two beautiful vistas of Pikes Peak in recent days. Yesterday we got a good layer of snow on the peak so it will be looking different for quite a while now. Enjoy.

THE REAL STORY OF THANKSGIVING

Did you know that the first Thanksgiving was a celebration of the triumph of private property and individual initiative?

William Bradford was the governor of the original Pilgrim colony, founded at Plymouth in 1621. The colony was first organized on a communal basis, as their financiers required. Land was owned in common. The Pilgrims farmed communally, too, following the "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" precept.

The results were disastrous. Communism didn't work any better 400 years ago than it does today. By 1623, the colony had suffered serious losses. Starvation was imminent.

Bradford realized that the communal system encouraged and rewarded waste and laziness and inefficiency, and destroyed individual initiative. Desperate, he abolished it. He distributed private plots of land among the surviving Pilgrims, encouraging them to plant early and farm as individuals, not collectively.

The results: a bountiful early harvest that saved the colonies. After the harvest, the Pilgrims celebrated with a day of Thanksgiving -- on August 9th.

Unfortunately, William Bradford's diaries -- in which he recorded the failure of the collectivist system and the triumph of private enterprise -- were lost for many years. When Thanksgiving was later made a national holiday, the present November date was chosen. And the lesson the Pilgrims so painfully learned was, alas, not made a part of the holiday.

Happily, Bradford's diaries were later rediscovered. They're available today in paperback. They tell the real story of Thanksgiving -- how private property and individual initiiative saved the Pilgrims.

This Thanksgiving season, one of the many things I'm thankful for is our free market system (imperfectly realized as it is). And I'm also grateful that there are increasing numbers of Americans who are learning the importance of free markets, and who are working to replace government coercion with marketplace cooperation here in America and around the world.

4TH OF JULY HIKING

Over the Fourth of July weekend we did alot of hiking. First we did the very steep and grueling Stanley Canyon on the Air Force Academy. Then on the Fourth we did a portion of the Falcon Trail on the Academy. Below are pictures from our 6-7 mile hike in the Garden of the Gods.

Here are Annika, Nathan and Rebekah at the beginning of the trail.



Here is a good picture of Rebekah through the hole in the "Siamese Twins" rock formation, with Pikes Peak in the background.


Here is Nathan and Rebekah in the "Siamese Twins" rock.



Here is Annika and Rebekah.

COMING HOME

I have nothing cosmic to post today. Only wanted to post a most awesome photo I took of Pikes Peak from one of our wonderful city parks, Palmer Park.

I have been away for almost 3 weeks doing an aircraft mishap investigation...No I can't tell you any gory details. But coming home has been very good. I got to drive across the beautiful flat and scenic central and western Kansas in a convertible. I did get a little sunburnned. Had a most fantastic lunch in the Abilene/Salina area...a part of the state I love!! I have done the Eisenhower half marathon in Abilene twice, and there is a stupendous coffee shop called "Mokka's" in Salina. I drove around Salina with the top down not really caring that it was raining. And the people of Kansas are always so friendly. I even stopped at the Smokey Hill Winery off of I-70 and brought home a couple of samples of Kansas vintage wine, much better than you might expect.

Well I do love to travel, but it is good to be home.



Nice car eh?