For our final night, we enjoyed a nice Solo Stove fire and a much quieter campground. We were amazed at how many people left Sunday morning – the place was completely different Sunday night vs. Saturday night (and much more to our liking!)

Monday we were up early and ready to hit the road. We had two options – the more direct route, North through Pittsburgh and Erie and then through Buffalo to Rochester. About 5.5 hours. Or, head East towards Shanksville, PA and stop at the Flight 93 National Memorial. About an hour to get there, and then 5 hours 20 minutes home via a bunch of small towns and then through the southern tier of NY on Route 390. I really felt like we needed to take advantage of being just an hour away from the memorial – not sure we’ll ever be in such a remote part of PA again, and we’ve seen the memorials at the Pentagon and World Trade Center, so we headed East.

The memorial, at the location where Flight 93 was brought down on 9/11, is truly in the middle of nowhere – thankfully, or there may have been casualties on the ground that day, not just on the plane. They’ve done an incredible job with the memorial. It had to be quite the challenge to figure out how to turn this field into a respectful and appropriate memorial to the 40 heroes on that plane who voted to overtake the terrorists and bring the plane down rather than letting it reach its intended target of the US Capitol.

When you first enter the National Park Service property, there’s the “Tower of Voices”, measuring 93 feet high and containing 40 wind chimes. It felt relatively windy but wasn’t enough for us to hear the wind chimes, unfortunately. As you can see from the photos, it was a gray, overcast day.

As you drive further in, you reach the visitor center. From the parking lot, as you approach the visitor center, the path follows the plane’s flight path. It ends at an overlook where you can see out to the crash site, where the point of impact is marked by a large sandstone boulder. The debris field around the crash site is actually the final resting place for the 40 passengers and crew – only about 8% of the remains were identified, although from that 8%, they did identify all 40 people. On average, each family only had about 2% of their family members’ remains returned to them. Only family members are allowed to go onto the field itself. There are marble panels with each name inscribed on it, as well.

The visitor center was crowded with a large school group so we couldn’t really see all the exhibits. There were places to listen to the voicemails that passengers left for loved ones, just minutes before the crash. There were fragments of the plane, many just a little larger than a quarter. Such an incredible and moving tribute to these American heroes.

My favorite quote at the memorial is “A common field one day. A field of honor forever.”

We spent about an hour there and then hit the road towards home. Our drive was smooth and uneventful…no weather issues, no traffic issues. The worst part was a 30-minute stretch near home on Route 390 where the road is in horrible condition and is just incredibly bumpy. Part of it has been milled and paved, so that was a nice break, but by the time we got home, I felt like I was still bouncing up and down from that nasty stretch of road! We were home by 6pm after lunch and dinner breaks. It was a wonderful trip, but it sure is nice to be home!

The trip by the numbers….

9 states

7 campgrounds

13 nights/14 days

About 2,500 miles driven

Hundreds of photos taken

Lots of memories made!

RoVer will get a nice little break (us too!) and in two weeks, we’ll head out for the Hudson Valley region of New York state…hopefully towing a car behind us if all goes well with installations in the next 10 days!