A Day in Pennsylvania
Fallingwater/Shanksville

by Nicholas Momurray

2. Shanksville
In the Fallingwater parking lot after the tour, I'm checking the atlas for the last leg of my trip to New York when I happen to notice in very small print just north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, not more than 20 miles from where I am now, the word "Shanksville."

Memory clicks: Shanksville, the other Ground Zero.

An hour later I'm lost north of I-70. My trusty atlas, when you get down to county-level roads, turns out to be not so trusty. I meet a farmer moseying along at a leisurely five miles an hour on his tractor and ask directions.

Soon enough I pull into the townlet of Shanksville. On the village green is a sign welcoming me to the "Home of the Vikings." Hanging below is another sign:

"Shanksville Honors the Heroes of Flight 93."

That's it. My curiosity is not sufficiently morbid to move me to ask for directions to the place where Flight 93 came down. I get back in the car and am ready to set out for New York when I notice a small hand-lettered sign stuck in the ground nearby:

"Flight 93 Impact Site,"

with an arrow pointing left.

Several miles later, seeing no other cars, I'm about to turn around when I come to another sign: "Flight 93 Temporary Memorial," with an arrow to the right.

Now I'm on private property, some kind of gravel company. The land is barren, with here and there giant shovel devices poking above the hills. After a couple of miles, again with no one on the road, I mount a hill and a large shallow valley opens in front of me...

Here I will let the pictures speak, with just these two notes. This was, remember, a Friday in October, and somehow all these people had also found their way here. The crowd was eerily silent. When people talked, they talked in whispers.

Go to Shanksville Slide Show >>

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