Flight 93 National Memorial

We left Artillery Ridge Camping Resort in Gettysburg, PA with our destination for today landing us in Somerset, PA at Pioneer Park Campground. We decided on this route with plans to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial. We arrived a little behind schedule getting a late start, but in the meantime getting to meet Tom (and his dad) from RoamingFree2010. It was great chatting with him about their adventures; they have been full-time RVing for 6 years - check out their blog here!

Once we arrived at the campground, we quickly set up and headed to the Flight 93 National Memorial which was about 20 miles away. The visitor center closes at 5 PM, so we made that our first stop. Inside the visitor’s center there was dual-sided displayes outlining the series of events that occurred on September 11, 2001. We definitely walked through the visitor’s center somberly with the most emotional part for us being the tearful and fearful passenger phone calls/voicemails. There were several lookouts over the field and crash site.

Once we finished up in the visitor’s center and lookouts, we headed down to the Crash Site & Memorial Plaza. It is located in a peaceful and beautiful setting and it is hard to believe that such violent and horrific events happened here. The memorial is laid out that you walk along the final flight path of Flight 93. The memorial wall is respectfully set a yew yards back from the actual crash site and includes all the names of the victims. A large boulder sits in the field that marks the spot where the plane crashed upside down into the field. You can still see the trees that were burned by the fiery crash and then in front of them the new trees that have grown in the past 15 years, serving as hope for the future. It is definitely worth a visit to respectfully honor the brave men and women who lost there lives there on that day.