↓
 

words and images

🇺🇦✏️✒️📚📔🌜dreamer 🌕 thinker 🌕 aspirant📱📷🚴‍♀️🏕🍄🌻

Menu
  • Home
  • Articles
  • Book Reviews
  • Letters
  • Photography
  • Poems & Stories
  • About Diane Schirf
  • Site Map

Tag Archives: National Memorial

Flight 93 National Memorial and beyond

On my last full day in Pennsylvania, the 28th, we went to the Flight 93 National Memorial despite the government shutdown. Our route took us down Lincoln Highway, which crosses the United States. It passes through Illinois in the far south suburbs of Chicago. Lincoln Highway reminds me that all of us are connected in some way.

We arrived first at the Tower of Voices, which with the surrounding landscaping are a work in progress. When completed, there will be a chime for each crew member and passenger on Flight 93 — 40 in all. At this time, there were eight if I recall correctly.

Flight 93 National Memorial Tower of Voices
Tower of Voices under construction

On a bench near the Tower of Voices, we found a “Painted Rock of Pennsylvania.” This is a thing I must look into. I loved this one.

Painted Rocks of Pennsylvania
Painted Rocks of Pennsylvania

The memorial site is a few miles off, with some farm buildings and wind turbines the main signs of habitation. Before 9/11, the residents of Shanksville and environs could not have imagined visitors from around the world making pilgrimage to their community a half hour south of Johnstown.

The site, which is large, was once a surface mine, stripped of most trees and since replanted. Due to the shutdown, the date, and possibly the gloomy but unseasonably warm weather, there were some but not many people about. We took our time walking to the wall where the names are inscribed, passing the large sandstone boulder that marks the area where the plane came to rest — violently. Someone had left flowers by a few of the names in the wall.

Flight 93 National Memorial
Sandstone marker

We found another Painted Rock of Pennsylvania on a bench along the way.

Painted Rocks of Pennsylvania

Painted Rocks of Pennsylvania

I found out via the Facebook hashtag #PROPA that the artist hadn’t expected them to be found until spring. I left both for others to find.

On the way back to the parking lot, we looked at some graphics, then drove to the visitor center. The high walls, marked with the hemlock lines that are the prevailing theme even in the sidewalks, show the path the plane took. In this case, the design’s simplicity adds to the solemnity of the place and inspires the imagination, especially when you remember this horrific event took place on a perfect sunny day in the waning summertime.

Flight 93 National Memorial
The walk between the walls marks Flight 93’s path

The visitor center was closed, of course, but we could see quite a bit through the glass. I wouldn’t have wanted to eavesdrop on those final conversations even if I could have.

Flight 93 National Memorial

On Lincoln Highway, I’d noticed signs for two covered bridges that didn’t seem to be far off — two or three miles, more or less. The first, Glessner Covered Bridge, was down a well-maintained dirt road — not too rutted. The covered bridge is lovely, with a barn on one side and railroad tracks that parallel the stream on the other. The stream is known as either Stony Creek or Stonycreek River. The latter seems redundant. It’s either a river or a creek, but neither is a clearly defined term.

Glessner Covered Bridge
Glessner Covered Bridge
Trostletown Covered Bridge
Glessner Covered Bridge leading to a railroad crossing

The generous landowner at Glessner covered bridge has posted signs — not the usual “Private,” “Posted,” “Keep Off,” etc,., but signs inviting you to enjoy a little fishing if you’re so minded. I call that right neighborly. It would be a lovely spot to fish in the warmer months.

Stonycreek River or Stony Creek
Stony Creek or Stonycreek River, tributary of the Conemaugh, open here for fishing
Glessner Covered Bridge
Glessner Covered Bridge on Google Maps

To get to Trostletown Covered Bridge, we passed Stoystown Auto Wreckers, quite possibly the largest junkyard I’ve ever seen — acres and more acres of junk cars at the bottom of rolling hills. As I recall, the Google Maps capture shows only a portion of the junkyard. Today — unsightly metal carcasses. Yesterday — bucolic covered bridges.

Google Earth image shows the size better.

Stoystown Auto Wreckers

I’ve read in several places that Trostletown Covered Bridge passes over Stonycreek, or Stony Creek River(?). I use a question mark because Google Maps shows Stony Creek River west of the bridge. I wonder if what we saw is a little offshoot — it doesn’t even appear on Google Maps in blue.

Trostletown Covered Bridge
Trostletown Covered Bridge

The water, wherever it comes from, doesn’t quite flow freely under Trostletown. It was low and in many places choked with plants and earth. Unlike Glessner Covered Bridge, which is open to cars, Trostletown doesn’t seem to lead anywhere, but ends in a seedy and weedy area. I’d want to plant a butterfly garden with benches there.

Water under Trostletown Covered Bridge
Water under Trostletown Covered Bridge

I teased my cousin’s wife about driving across the Trostletown Covered Bridge, but she’d already noted it goes nowhere. I drew their attention to another deterrent — a Conestoga wagon blocking the way.

Conestoga wagon on Trostletown Covered Bridge
Trostletown Covered Bridge

Google Earth shows Trostletown Covered Bridge to your right from the bend in the road.

Untitled
Trostletown Covered Bridge to your right of bend in the road

Trostletown Covered Bridge and the Conestoga wagon are not the only remnants of history here. Kitty corner from the covered bridge the Stoystown American Legion post features a tank and a helicopter positioned to nosedive into the ground. I read elsewhere it’s a Vietnam-era Huey.

American Legion post at Stoystown
Stoystown American Legion

On the way to and back, mist smothered and covered what lay in the hollows, often following the meanderings, we thought, of streams and rivers. You can’t quite capture it from a moving vehicle.

Mist in the valleys
Late morning/early afternoon mist in the valleys
Evening mist over a hollow
Evening mist in the hollows

Although the day had been gloomy, there was one brief hint of life and color as the sun appeared while making its daily disappearance.

Sun appears to disappear
A brief splash of color at last

Days like this make leaving harder than it already is.

January 15, 2019 by dlschirf Posted in Adventure, Blog, Photography Tagged covered bridges, National Memorial, Pennsylvania, photo, weather Reply

Recent Posts

  • RANI incense cones
  • Backyard games
  • German Winter Nights by Johann Beer
  • Hungry squirrel and red-tailed hawk
  • Lodgings I have known: Arrowhead Lodge, Kabetogama, Minnesota

Top Posts & Pages

  • "I'd rather be slowly consumed by moss"
  • Everyday poetry: "Ode to Billie Joe"
  • Relics: Portable typewriter, Royal Sabre style
  • Maple Sugar Time at Chellberg Farm, 3/7/2020
  • Golconda, Burden Falls, Bell Smith Springs Recreation Area
  • Wopsononock Mountain, or Wopsy, in Blair County, Pennsylvania
  • Book review: The Collected Stories by Paul Theroux
  • The Pepperland: Prosaic story behind the portal to another dimension
  • Book review: The Way to Rainy Mountain
  • Book review: House Made of Dawn

Other realms

  • BookCrossing
  • Facebook
  • Goodreads
  • Instagram
  • LibraryThing
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Good viewing

  • Art of John Taft
  • bensozia
  • Bill of the Birds (no longer updated)
  • BrontëBlog
  • Edge
  • Karen Winters Fine Art
  • Mental Floss
  • Musical Assumptions
  • National Geographic News
  • Orange Crate Art
  • Sexy Archaeology
  • The Creative Journey
  • The Introvert's Corner
  • The Pen Addict
  • The Raucous Royals
  • Thrilling Days of Yesteryear
  • Woodclinched
  • World-O-Crap

BOINC Stats

Copyright © 1996–2023 Diane Schirf. Photographs and writing mine unless noted.
↑