Side quest completed

We finally stopped by the Flight 93 memorial in Somerset County. Adrianne and I had always wanted to stop there but we never seemed to have the time. On the way out of town, we stopped in Bedford for gas and food and decided to see how close the memorial was. It really wasn’t that far off our beaten path, just the other direction on US route 30 about thirty minutes.

After a nice drive through beautiful mountain ranges and other central Pennsylvanian scenery, we arrived at the memorial. It was a peaceful, solemn place. The approach road is a long and winding road that takes you past the Tower of Voices. Eventually, it brings you to the visitor’s center where you can walk along the path that Flight 93 took. The walkway has black stones with the events of September 11, 2001 and times carved into them. The path goes past two stone monoliths that curve around the park and deposit you onto an overlook where you can see a large 17 ton sandstone boulder where Flight 93 impacted.

You can drive or hike down past the visitor’s center to a marble wall with the name of every passenger and crew member that was on the flight. There is a wooden gate that can be opened for special ceremonies and groundskeeping purposes. The field beyond the walkway and marble wall is called the debris field and is the final resting place of the passengers and crew members.

Walking around and looking at everything was emotionally difficult and brought back a lot of memories of September 11th. I was at ground zero right after 9/11 and I’ve been back since the Freedom Tower took the place of the Twin Towers. It’s humbling and awe-inspiring but it didn’t affect me the way the field did. It was so close to my hometown. There were terrorists that were in my home state of Pennsylvania. They flew over my home; it became more real to me after this visit.

After the visitor’s center and the impact site, we drove out to the Tower of Voices which is a tower with 40 tubular bells in it that represent the voices of the 40 people who died on Flight 93 and saved countless others. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten and was so selfless. It was humbling to think about what would I have done if I faced the same decision as they had.

This last trip to Pennsylvania was just a quick one. We had to go back to Altoona so I could get a new driver’s license and we needed to return Mom and Dad’s car to them. I’m not sure when I’m going to be able to make another trip.