Flight 93 National Memorial and a Bonus

We started out the day planning to visit the Flight 93 Memorial but at the Memorial we learned about another memorial we could visit since we only had a three-hour drive to our next stop for the night.

The day started out with fog and for most of the day, it was overcast.  We drove on US Highway 30 to get to the 93 memorial.  Highway 30 was the first coast to coast highway built and it crosses the state in Northern Illinois.  In fact, the national Highway 30 organization is located in Illinois.  It is called "the Lincoln Highway" and it was named after Abraham Lincoln.

This mural was painted on the side of a barn on Highway 30.

The sun was trying to dissipate the fog.  It made for a pretty picture.

This is the walkway entrance to the Flight 93 visitor's center.  The airplane traveled between the location of the panels toward to empty meadow.

This is the meadow where Flight 93 crashed.

Another view of the flight path between the panels at the visitor's center.

Wall of Names

The black wall is part of the boundary of the debris field and crash site.

This huge boulder is located at the crash site location.

Someone had left these mementoes along the boundary wall.

These panels contain the names of the 40 passengers/crew of Flight 93.  Each panel contains a separate name.  The Wall of Names is also aligned with the pathway of the airplane.

This gate opens onto the debris field.  Only family members of those who died in the crash are allowed to use this gate.  The meadow is the burial site of their family member and everything is done to protect this sacred ground.

This woman and her unborn child was on the flight.

This memorial is a very moving place to visit.  While we were there several bus loads of 7th graders arrived.  The teacher told us that the whole  month of September is devoted to studying about this event and trying to instill in the kids patriotic feelings.  She said all curriculum revolves around this event, even math problems.  She told us that she had been in her home when the crash occurred and that she felt the impact in her house although at the moment it happened, she did not know what had happened.

This is the Tower of Voices.  It was not here the last time we visited five years ago.  The tower contains 40 bells which play musical notes when the wind blows at least 15-20 MPH.  It wasn't that windy when we were there, so we didn't get to her the bells.

Looking up inside the tower at the bells.

While at the Flight 93 memorial, we saw a poster listing other national park memorials in this area.  One of them was the Johnstown Floor National Park Memorial.  Since we had some extra time, we decided to check it out.  We are so glad we did.  We had heard of this famous flood but didn't know much about it.

We took several rural roads today and saw that some of the trees had changed.

After days of rain and years of poor maintenance, an earthen dam failed on May 31, 1889.  The Johnstown Flood was caused when the South Fork Dam collapsed in the middle causing nearly 20 million tons of water to form a wall of water to up to 75 feet high and traveling over 40 miles per hour.  In 45 minutes nearly 2200 people were killed.  

The dam and Lake Conemaugh was owned by a private Fishing and Hunting Club.  Rich and famous industrialists like Andrew Carnegie were members of the club and spent summers there relaxing and enjoying all activities a lake can bring.  The president of the club lived in the house above.  It is an original structure being renovated by the park service.  Following the flood, lawsuits were filed against the club because of poor maintenance of the dam but none were won.

This highway connects the south and north remaining portions of the dam.

We left the area on the Pennsylvania Toll Road which crosses into the top sliver of West Virginia.

We are staying in Cambridge, Ohio.  It is 425 miles from home so tomorrow will be our last traveling day.

  We had supper at the Cracker Barrell located adjacent to the Comfort Inn in which we are staying.  While we were eating, I put my purse in the seat beside me and what to you know, I left it there.  We walked back to the motel and once in the room, I looked for my phone to download picture for the blog.  Yikes!  No purse!  We quickly returned to the Cracker Barrell and thankfully, they  had the purse.  The memory is really going!!

This was another enjoyable day and our final day to sightsee.  It was totally unexpected because we did not expect to visit anything other than the Flight 93 memorial.  We are glad we were able to visit the Johnstown Memorial, as well.