So this is the cute little campground we pulled into last night. The important part is that we could get IN and to our site with no problem. {ie. no gate!} :D Although I think we were the neighborhood entertainment for all the grey hairs to watch. lol
Our next stop in the morning was obviously, the most important.. bucks! And it was our first chance for a Pennsylvania mug also. So the Mister and I went into Starbucks on a date. It might seem inconsequential to most and a little silly but our time together, only the two of us, means as much, if not more, now than it did before. I mean we love our gaggle and all, but our (itsy bitsy) dates are special. We get to walk in (which is normally a bit of a jaunt after parking the tin can) without worrying about anyone getting run over and actually use the restroom with no cling-on's. :) And so for the 9.3 minutes that it takes us to go in and out, we thoroughly enjoy our time together. <3
Our next stop of the day was actually unintentional, but we found out how close we were and decided we couldn't pass it up. So after the bucks, we headed to the Flight 93 Memorial.
When we arrived, the littles were napping and the eldest was actually quite under the weather so the three of them stayed in the tin can. And the remaining three of us walked up to the memorial.
So we all know what happened that day and yes, it's incredibly heart wrenching and sad. It's like watching the movie Titanic, right? The ship still sinks every time. But being at the memorial was much more sobering than I would have guessed.
As you arrive, you walk through this series of signs/plaques that describe the events and information surrounding Flight 93. You can listen to a narrator with your phone, if you so desire, or just read the signs yourself. It is a quiet and reflective atmosphere. And then after you go through all the stations they have set up, there is a small little building that contains a simple counter and bulletin board. There is this question...
How do you define honor?
And you can write and post your answer on the bulletin board for all to see.
You then walk up this pathway that has these cut outs in the slanted wall along the way. People can leave memorabilia items in the designated spaces and there are benches lining the other side where you can sit and reflect. Other than that, there is no signage, no graphics, no information, just a blank pathway that lines this field.
You can see in the photo above and the one below, if you look closely, the boulder that is set in the back of the photos. The boulder, along with a few small flags, is where the flight crashed into the earth. After all the investigation was complete, the local coroner order the hole in the ground to be refilled. So all you can see at this point, is the grass growing in a slightly different color near the boulder.
At the end of the pathway, you have a marble plaque for each of the passengers and crew that were aboard the plane. Their name is etched in black and if they were a crew member, that is denoted also.
This one was especially impactful to me.... look closely at the words etched at the end of her last name, not in black.
There were a few things that were incredibly interesting to me that were either new information or I hadn't thought of before, like...
- of the 44 passengers and crew on board, there was only one husband/wife couple. As far as we know, no one else knew each other or were with family.
- and as I think of a Boeing 757, I guessed that it probably had a much greater capacity than the 44 passengers and crew on board. So I looked it up and depending on how the airline ordered the plane to be made, a Boeing 757 could potentially carry anywhere from the low 200's to high 200's. And to think that only 44 people boarded flight 93 that day.
- witnessing the physical landscape of the area was a bit surreal. To think that among the rolling hills and farm lands there are neighbors who would have had a front row seat to see, smell, hear and experience the crash itself, is daunting. The crash site sits in a bit of a small valley and to think that not too far away is city life and much more hustle and bustle, there are not too many other places it could have crashed without more loss of life or property. But here is where the plane went down, when they only had 20 more minutes of flying time before DC.
- and to most this is probably obvious, but at the memorial there is not one mention of the high jackers. Their names are not listed on any of the information about those who passed. And in our ever increasing world of acceptance and liberal persuasion to accept all, I cherished the fact that those who committed this horrendous crime were not honored with their own plaque listing their names. I was relieved that no matter what ethnicity or religion they represented, their actions were not worthy of name recognition in their loss of life.
They are currently doing major construction to increase the size of the memorial, which is supposed to be done by this September, I believe.
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