On Memorial Day, I dropped a few images on the blog, set to the words of America the Beautiful, and it quickly became the most viewed post on the blog… ever.

For those of us in the States, today is a big day — the 235th anniversary of our independence. I was struck this weekend by a story CBS ran on Sunday Morning, featuring former Prime Minister of England Tony Blair speaking of the American experience as viewed from a good friend of this country. I’ve embedded it below, in case you missed it. (Sorry about the commercial at the beginning, but that’s the way CBS runs their videos!) Take a listen.

(The transcript of Tony Blair’s comments are here.)

With that in mind, and with the celebrations of our country’s independence culminating today and tonight, I thought I’d share some of my favorite patriotic images I’ve captured over the last ten years or so. As of the time I’m writing this, I have no idea how many there’ll be, so I’ll apologize in advance for the potentially long loading times. I get long-winded when I speak, and I get even longer-winded with my photography!