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Albania and Kosovo - Peaks of the Balkans 2023
Flight 93 Memorial - 9/11
Shanksville, Pennsylvania
The "Tower of Voices" is the signature landmark you first see at the entrance to the Park.
What looks like a bell tower is a tower of wind chimes, one for each of the 40 passengers and crew . . .
. . who left their voices for loved ones on phone calls home, and finally here for a valley breeze.
Further into the park is the Visitor Center. You approach over a black walkway which reflects the final flight path of United 93.
It also marks a timeline of the first three planes hitting the North and South Towers as well as the Pentagon.
If you look closely you'll see diagonal lines symbolizing the branches of the hemlock tree forest also lost in the crash.
The flight path and timeline leads at the end to a lookout over the crash site of the fourth plane.
The embracing concrete walls are stamped with a texture of the hemlock planks used in barns throughout the area.
The lookout views the "hallowed ground" below which is part of a three mile loop walking path descending into the valley floor.
The walking path winds through forty groves of forty trees each remembering the actions of passengers and crew.
Unlike the urban 9/11 memorials this one is embedded in the wildflowers of rural Pennsylvania.
Example- Queen Ann's Lace.
A footbridge hovers over the wetlands with pools of water reflecting the sky amidst . . .
English Asters . . .
At ground zero, the sacred ground of green is left untouched where a simple black barrier draws the eye outward across the field to the hemlock forests beyond,
Thistles . . .
Near the epicenter are forty white marble tablets that appear to be a unified continuous wall leading . .
and Golden Rods.
. . . towards a roughly hewn hemlock gate that is only opened once a year, for three hours, on September 11 for the families of those on Flight 93.
Each marble tablet honors one person. They are slightly separated, symbolizing individuals who acted with one resolve to prevent Flight 93 from reaching its destination of the US Capitol.
The name of one woman onboard gently pays tribute to the fact she was pregnant with child and this loss was even greater.
The hemlock gate is roughly carved with forty angles reminding us again those onboard lost their lives in a chaotic struggle for survival.
Peering through the closed gate one sees a 17 ton sandstone marking the crash site and the threshold where terror was turned into sacrifice and honor.
Walking back up the hillside you are greeted by brown-eyed Susans, the most prolific wildflower in the valley.
Your three mile pilgrimage through Nature and Time brings you back to the Visitor Center with its dramatic flight path and look out.
A rural setting in Western Pennsylvania, a common field one day . . .
A Field of Honor Forever.
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