During one of my "mini vacation weeks" this year the team decided as a whole that we would visit the Flight 93 Memorial outside of Shanksville, Somerset County as it is only an hour away from our Westmoreland base. We were planning to go the day before, but the weather could not agree with us with cloud cover and such. At night, we were cautioned on TV about possible tornadic activity in nearby central parts of the county and the need to take shelter.
The following morning, we decided to just make the journey and whatever it would be it would be. We started the morning by fueling at the local gas station, as gas stations from Flight 93 are nearly 10 miles from the site. We fueled and entered the address into the navigator and headed East on the Lincoln for the Mountains. Beginning to climb, we seen the Forbes State Forest District Office, always wanting to see that and wanting to dodge the raindrops, we decided to stop there on the return trip,
After Ligonier and Laughlintown, we climbed the crest of the Laurel Hill Summit passing the turnoffs for Linn Run, Laurel Mountain and Laurel Summit State Parks before Crossing the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail (Laurel Ridge State Park) before going through Jennerstown,, Fennellton, of which their were traffic lights. Within an hour of leaving our base, we arrived at the approach for the Flight 93 National Memorial.
Once off the Lincoln, we rode on the 2.5 Mile Park Road, passing by various waysides as well as the Tower of Voices that was being constructed at the time of this writing. It is to be completed during the annual remembrance services in September.
Continuing on the park road, we follow the signs to the Visitor Center Complex, where we park the car and use the modern comfort facilities, of which are attached to the learning center. When finished a park volunteer oriented us to the National Memorial and suggested that we visit the overlook and visitor center, then either walk or drive to the memorial plaza. We decided that we would drive to the memorial plaza after the visitor center complex activities.
Next, we followed the flight path to the overlook
We all retrace the steps of the day, for myself, that morning it was the second week of my sophomore year in High School, and it was a new school. At the time that the first plane struck the WTC on September 11, I was transferring classes to a classroom just across the hall and seen it occur as the instructor had it on NBC News each morning that year as it was her planning period before our class. That's when we would learn history and the world would know too of the day's events. The teacher would
continue to have her planned lesson for the day while keeping the TV on a low volume. After this class was Study Hall, and we again had the TV on, but on CNN this time and by then (40 some minutes) we had learned that the second WTC Tower was struck and by then the Pentagon. The instructor housing the Study Hall, drew maps on the board orienting Washington DC and where everything was. Being some four hours away we didn't think anything else could
possibly happen. So next was lunch was had when we were told of Flight 93 landing in the field here in Somerset County that day. Still puzzled, after lunch, the school was placed on lockdown and students were being called to the office for early dismissal as their parents were picking them up, but I knew I would remain there for the remainder of the day as cell phones are non-existant nor would anybody do so, as it seemed asinine to leave school for something
that wouldn't possibly happen. Anyway, school was dismissed and when I came home and turned on the TV, all but probably 3 channels had news of some kind on about the terroristic acts performed on our country that day. Later in the day we learned more about Shanksville, and what it would become and the two other sites that these acts would be perfomed on.
We would learn from reading literature of this park, that President George W. Bush signed the NM into declaration just one year later and the memorial plaza (pictured from overlook above) was dedicated for the 10th Anniversary in 2011, followed by the Visitor Center Complex in 2015. The tower of voices will be completed this year, thus making the park almost complete with the completion of tree planting which is done every Earth Day Weekend.
Once inside the visitor center, we did the passport thing, and proceeded to the exhibits and explored them from everything, to the plane to the victims, to their families, to the day itself to the media and memorabilia. There are both tactile and panel as well as video displays of the different media coverage.
Also, inside the visitor center are windows where you can see down to the memorial plaza as well as across the memorial groves to the plaza and visitor shelter.
After visiting the visitor center, we proceed down the road to the memorial plaza where we go through the Visitor Shelter and head down the 1/4 mile trail to the Wall of Names where we stop and reach each one before returning back to the visitor shelter and finally the car before departing the park.
