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Reporter shares highlights of vacation trip

Posted 10/10/17

It’s been eight years since I’ve been back to the woods in Pennsylvania where I grew up. Allegheny National Forest, the state’s only national forest, is thick and lush, waiting for the hunters …

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Reporter shares highlights of vacation trip

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It’s been eight years since I’ve been back to the woods in Pennsylvania where I grew up. Allegheny National Forest, the state’s only national forest, is thick and lush, waiting for the hunters this fall.

My plan to visit my sisters and their families in September included a hope for brisk autumn days and a colorful display of foliage. I was wrong. Cool mornings quickly gave way to unseasonable days with temperatures hovering in the upper 80s. That was 10 degrees and more above the normal, according to the forecasters. But for someone who sees 100 by breakfast in the summer, the heat did not seem insurmountable.

My sister, Susan, lives in Bradford where we grew up. She is a retired school teacher who taught in the same classrooms where she was taught.

In the timber-, coal- and oil-rich areas of Pennsylvania in the 19th Century, commodities like these moved by river or rail. Thomas Kane, a Civil War veteran with business interests, was looking for new ways to bring coal to the industrial towns along the Allegheny Plateau. He took a rail line to the edge of a steep valley and hired engineers to find a way across.

The result was at the time the highest and longest railroad viaduct in the country, maybe the world. The original Kinzua Bridge was built in 120 days and was upgraded a few years later to accommodate longer, heavier trains.

The bridge served until other transport measures made it obsolete, and it continued as an excursion route and tourist attraction with great views of the wooded valley.

In 2003 crews were working to restore the bridge and make it stronger for future use when a storm came up the valley, spawning an F-1 tornado which struck the bridge and twisted half of it into the valley below. The twisted steel skeletons of the bridge supports still lie where they fell.

Pennsylvania State Parks has improved the site, creating a skywalk halfway out over the valley.

My sister, Martha, lives near Altoona, Pa. where I spent the weekend with nieces and nephews of a wide range in age. We also visited the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum and went to the Horseshoe Curve. The Altoona Curve, as it is known, was built by the railroad to climb over the peaks of the Allegheny Mountains to open the west to rail travel in the early 19th Century.

I headed out on my own toward Washington, D.C. and my visit was just a couple of weeks removed from the anniversary of the 911 attacks in 2001. I wanted to make a stop at the Flight 93 Memorial outside Shanksville, Pa. This site is less than 50 miles from my sister’s home near Altoona.

Climbing a twisting road over the hills going west from Bedford, Pa. you eventually find the signs showing the route to the memorial and turn off onto a road that leads about 3.5 miles back across remote farms to the site of the crash and the memorial.

Having had the impression since the tragedy that this was a farm field I was surprised to learn it is not. Remote farms surround the area, but the site of the crash was actually an abandon strip mine.

The memorial and visitor’s center is impressive. Marble slabs are inscribed with the names of the people who died when the plane went down. The center and memorial are lined up along the final path Flight 93 took before it crashed in the field. First responders were there probably within 10, 15 minutes, according to the ranger at the site. There was no one to save.

The crater left by the plane has since been filled and leveled and a boulder has been placed roughly where the cockpit struck, forever a reminder of the tragic heroics of those passengers.

My primary objective in Washington, D.C. was the Newseum, the museum that presents the freedoms of the First Amendment. Religion, speech and press are prominent here, but you are reminded to recognize the right of assembly and right to petition.

The Newseum also has a significant 911 display with recollections of those who were on the scene covering the event. There is a memorial to the one journalist killed in the collapse of one of the two towers. There is also a remnant of the communications tower from the top of the World Trade Center.

I also visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum with tributes ranging from the Wright Brothers and Lindberg to space travel and satellites.

A tour of the Mall with the numerous monuments closed out my day in Washington. It was still hot and it included a lot of walking.

The Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial are as impressive as they appear in photos and movies. The Capitol dome seems to be visible from almost anywhere on the Mall, even more so than the Washington Monument.

As I left Washington I had one more stop before heading on to Pittsburgh to catch a plane home. Near Sharpsburg, Md. is where Antietam Creek flows toward the Potomac River and the site of the Battle of Antietam, or Sharpsburg, depending on which side you are on.

It is difficult to comprehend that a scene of such pastoral countryside and creekside serenity could be the place where a horrible carnage took place. It was the greatest single day death toll in American history prior to 911.