Sept 12 Day 11

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Today is Monday, and Lennie and I convinced Stacey to take a day of work to spend more time with us!!  Our plan for the day was to head to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville PA.

Lennie decided to drive Stacey's car for a while and let Stacey have some riding time with me on the bike.  We headed out of the Alexandria area toward PA.  Since Lennie is usually on the bike, we have never had a shot like this, showing how others see us on the road.

The weather was wonderful as we made our way down the highway.

Then, out of nowhere, we ran into a pretty nasty storm cell.  The rain wasted no time, and before we knew it, we had to pull over for some rain gear.  Stacey jumped in car with Lennie to dry off, while I suited up.

Of course, once suited up, the rain diminished to a slow drizzle.

And within 15 minutes the showers stopped and sun started to poke out again.  Mother nature can be pretty fickle.

We rolled into the Flight 93 Memorial around noon.  I am really glad we visited today and not yesterday, as the park workers indicated there was a multiple hour wait to get in yesterday!!  Today, most folks are back at work, and we had the place almost to ourselves.

The Flight 93 National Memorial is located at the site of the crash of United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked in the September 11 attacks, in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, about 2 miles north of Shanksville, and 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The memorial was made to honor the passengers of Flight 93, who stopped the terrorists from reaching their target.  A temporary memorial to the 40 victims was established soon after the crash, and the first phase of the permanent memorial was completed, opened and dedicated on September 10, 2011 (yesterday). 

The memorial has a perimeter wall surrounding the crash site.  The angle of the face of the wall is the same angle the plane hit the ground.  There are a number of open nooks along the wall, and yesterdays visitors left some remembrances.

Another section of the memorial contains a marble wall with the names of those lost on Flight 93.  The wall is composed of narrow panels with a slight gap between them.  You can see the sunlight hitting the bricks on the ground below as it streams between the panels.

The wall is constructed to be right in line with the flight path taken by Flight 93 as it crashed.

The wall points directly into a field where a large rock marks the actual impact point of the crash.  Only family members of those who perished on the flight are allowed to visit the impact sight.

After visiting the memorial, Stacey headed back home to D.C., and Lennie and I headed down the road to spend our last night in Donegal PA.

We covered 275 miles today traveling from Alexandria Virginia to Donegal PA, taking our trip total to 2131 miles.  Below is a map of the route from today.