Monday, May 28, 2007

Time to remember

To be sitting here on Memorial Day as I input my final blog entry, I realize the importance of our mission. We left our suburban Pittsburgh hotel on Saturday morning to make the 60 mile ride to Shanksville, PA - the crash site of United 93 on 9/11. In my opinion, this is the spot where our war against Al Qaeda started. Some might say it started a few hours early in New York, however, this is where we said no more....and fought back.





The current memorial is temporary, with the final one still a few years away.





The actual crash site is located just beyond a large american flag in the field. The largest section of the plane recovered was a 6 by 7 piece of fuselage. However, many personal effects, including jewlery and a flight attendants badge were found and returned to the family. The black box was also recovered which revealed the the cockpit conversation until the final moment. A book with this trascript is available at the site.

A guest book is available for all visitors to sign.













Earlier in the day, we walked over to the Eat-N-Park for the final breakfast of the trip (Mike is doing the photo duty).











We got dumped on between Breezewood, PA and Berkeley Springs, WV. We took shelter for about 20 minutes and kept on truckin'. Drying off was no problem, as it was pretty hot. Temps were approaching 100 in the sun.















We were making good time and had an oppotunity for some ice cream in Winchester, VA. Tom's brother Phil stopped by to say hello.
We arrived back in Fairfax at 5:45PM. With over $20,000 raised for our wounded heroes, plus $2,000 donated to the Ft. Drum, 10th Mountain scholarship, we all agreed that we had another successful mission.

We'll be getting together in the next few weeks to discuss next years destination.
Also, I will be adding some additional photos in the coming days as soon as everyone downloads and sends them on. Thanks to everyone for their support and generous contribution to the cause!