Parks 25 & 26: Valley Forge National Historic Park and Flight 93 Memorial Park

The ROAD TRIP begins!

The traveling partners are ready to go!

The car is fully packed!

8/11/13. Today started Catherine's and my long journey, driving from New Jersey to Los Angeles. We started out with the super-packed car at 8:00 am this morning and head down Route 1 to Pennsylvania. We first stopped for a break at Valley Forge National Historic Park and we were surprised at how many people were using the location as a park: dog walkers, joggers, people on bicycles and horses, and many people walking the trails.

"John Rand" was in their database of soldiers who were at Valley Forge (as well as John Hubbard)

Reconstructions of soldiers cabins

Soldiers cabins in the field

One of the incongruous statues

We stopped at the Visitor’s Center first and got our passport stamps and looked at the lovely exhibits. This park clearly gets a lot of funding from the parks service. We then watched a film about the role of Valley Forge in the Revolutionary War that was quite awful, especially compared to the exhibits in the visitor’s center. It looked like it was made in the 1970’s.

We decided to drive the historical encampment trail which wound around the entire park. There were reconstructed huts that the soldiers would have built and lived in, and many monuments and statues that looked ridiculously out of place with their French and Italian splendor in this beautiful natural setting. The park as a whole reminded me a lot of the Morristown Historical Park in NJ that focuses on a similar time period.

Our next stop was Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania:

View of Flight 93 Memorial in the distance from the parking area

Walkway out to the Memorial Wall where the names are carved on marble panels

Wildflowers next to the memorial

This was 30 minutes off I76 and I was concerned about taking that much time off our route, but we both thought it was very worth it. The memorial park is solemn, beautiful, and respectful. The site is a long walk from the small building where rangers lead a program reviewing the heroic events of that day. The design of the memorial is stunning and there are wildflowers everywhere in huge stretches. At the end of the walkway is the actual memorial to the people killed on the plane – a wall of white marble panels with the names engraved. I cried down the entire walkway -- and I wasn't alone. It's a very sad place that made me overwhelmed by human violence.

View of the impact site from the memorial. The marbles panels are lined up in the direction of the flight path.

View of the visitor's areas from the memorial wall

We were very surprised at how crowded it was since it is not easy to get to and not close to any main roads or cities. We parked in an overflow parking lot and the ranger talk had dozens of people listening in. This is more than just a memorial, since the remains of the bodies are still on the site. It is more like a beautiful cemetery in the middle of peaceful rolling hills. It was draining emotionally, but extremely moving and I’m glad we both got the opportunity to experience this park.

Niches in the memorial wall for mementos

Next we headed back on I76 all the way through Pennsylvania, which seemed endless! We stopped a few times at rest stops and to get gas and were surprised to find that Burger King sold a tasty veggie burger. Who knew? While driving we were shocked to see a sign that said we were entering West Virginia. We thought we had gone in the wrong direction, but quickly figured out that we drove through a short stretch of the northwest section of the state. We were soon in Ohio and continued on I70 all the way to Dayton. We were an hour and a half behind my anticipated schedule, in part because we spent much more time at the Flight 93 memorial than expected and we took longer breaks.

Catherine adopted a cat at our hotel, and I had trouble convincing her she couldn't come with us!

The Hawthorne Inn is very nice for the price. We’re ready to get a good night’s sleep so we and hit the road again tomorrow!