I TOOK A RIDE TO SHANKSVILLE

This was supposed to be a story about a ride along two hundred miles of Route 30, the Lincoln Highway, one of the nation's first cross country roads. It isn't.



It was supposed be about Gettysburg and the history of travel in the early 20th century...



Of country roads...


That go on forever through an America that no longer exists



AND THEN I STOPPED AT SHANKSVILLE FOR PHOTOS
I'm on route 30 Westbound, twenty five miles west of Bedford, at an otherwise nondescript interseciton with Lambertsville Road, a simple sign pointed left, to the
FLIGHT 93 MEMORIAL.

Turning, I stepped off the world, riding into a small patch of peaceful observance, a bubble of soltitude, where over 130,000 come each year to pay tribute.

If there is any doubt in your mind wheher anyone still cares, those doubts will be put to rest by a forty-foot wall covered with bits and pieces of the American soul, surrounded by tributes large and small, evidence that people still care, people still remember.

On 9-11-01, the local residents in those very modest homes on Lambertsville Road were probably focused on what was happening in New York and Washington, completely unaware of what was about to happen to their little corner of the world.

Flight 93 came in from the north, and when it crossed over Lambertville Road it was little more than five hundred feet in the air and upside down. What was going on inside that plane is beyond anyone's comprehension, As was the bravery of the passengers and crew who prevented it from reaching its target in Washington. There are no words to describe the debt we all owe them.

It plowed into the earth in this former strip mining field a hundred yards short of the treeline, where a simple American Flag now marks the spot five hundred yards from the gravel memorial area.

There will be a proper monument here someday, but this is the People's Memorial, created by those of us who will not forget. Ever.

I too, left a little bit of myself, and I'll be back.