Along the way to Pittsburgh

A few weeks ago, Tony and I had a great little trip to Pittsburgh. It was awesome! I'd never been there and was interested to see what it was all about. So many people have the same thought when they first think about Pittsburgh - dirty steel city. However, for the last many decades, Pittsburgh has been working hard to change their image. We should all replace our image of dirty steel city with beautiful wooded hills, three wide rivers, and many bridges and tunnels. It was really beautiful, especially in the spring. Our trip was very quick - a working trip actually for both of us - and it just whetted our appetite to go back and explore at length.

Our drive out to Pittsburgh should only have taken 5 hours or so, yet it took almost 10 due to a fatal accident on the PA Turnpike. While we were sorry to hear someone had died - very sad - also please imagine the emotions as we learn the Turnpike is closed for almost 65 miles both directions. It wasn't like we were alone out there, folks. Thousands of other drivers were also headed in the same direction! We all had to get off of the turnpike at the same very small exit which was NOT equipped to handle even half that many vehicles at once. Add to that the fact that we had three different directions given to us as a detour - one from the emergency radio station, one from an emergency worker on the turnpike, and another from our dear GPS - so we ended up sort of going our own way. Tony had been out in this neighborhood for work a while before this, so some things were familiar. He remembered that Shanksville was there somewhere nearby. This was all gorgeous farm country and we were eager to leave the rest of the cranky souls in their cars far behind us, so we headed towards Shanksville and the Flight 93 National Memorial. It was absolute serendipity that we found it and we loved the beautiful drive through country roads. We had intended to see the memorial on our way home, but this was much better after the day we'd had. Honoring the heroes that took down the airplane headed to the Capitol building helped us remember how blessed and lucky we were.

Please go to the memorial if you are ever in Southwestern Pennsylvania. It is very special and the resting spot of 40 heroes. We learned that Flight 93 was delayed almost 30 minutes from takeoff. By the time the plane was hijacked and all the passengers and crew were shoved to the back of the plane, when they called using the air-phones they were told what had already happened with the other three planes. It was at that point that they made a plan to take down the terrorists. They attacked and forced a crash into a field in Shanksville going 563 mph killing everyone on board - 40 passengers and crew and 4 terrorists. Every one of the 40 passengers' names is written on a marble section of the wall. The memorial is still being built and is going to be such a wonderful place for us to remember these heroes in the coming years. We saw lots of landscapers at work planting groves of trees. One of the groves will have 40 windchimes.  Visitors are able to leave notes at the memorial honoring those who died there.

The entrance introduces the story before you enter the memorial.

Looking from the entrance down the long walking path to the memorial wall.

The field where the plane crashed and where remains are buried.

The wall with one panel for each person.

After leaving the memorial, we traveled back to the turnpike and the remainder of our way to our hotel. We went to a great little restaurant next to our hotel which has been there since the 30s. Tony had swordfish and I ordered a steak salad. As with many things in Pittsburgh, my salad was slightly surprising. It had french fries IN the salad. I had thought the menu was mistaken in explaining it, but no - they were part of the salad. It was delicious, but I still picked most of them off the top and ate them separately. Putting french fries in things is a fine Pittsburgh tradition I was later informed! Lots more to discover about this interesting city, so you'll just have to wait for my next post explaining the rest of our adventures!