Allegheny Portage National Historic Site
This site is the perfect example of learning about something I'd never even heard of. Pennsylvanians wanted to build a canal across the state, but the Allegheny mountains were in the way. They built the canal, and then did a portage over the mountains. The boats were loaded onto railroad cars and pulled up the hills by huge steam engines in engine houses. This began in 1834 and made a huge difference for western Pennsylvania. Goods became cheaper because it wasn't so expensive to ship them, and more people started moving west.
Johnstown Flood National Memorial
2,209 people died when the dam collapsed in 1889. It's a horrible story of how the lake was made/owned by the hunting/fishing club for rich people, and they did nothing in terms of upkeep on the dam. An engineer was not consulted when it was built, and they kept the regular water level really high. So when it started raining and raining, it just totally burst. There was already bad flooding and telegraph lines were down, so the people in Johnstown received no warning. I watched a movie at the visitor center that was just a little too real; they did a great job of recreating what that must have been like. It was extremely disturbing; watching people drown made me feel like I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't wait to get out of there. The most memorable part was how they ended it- reading a list of names of the dead, or in many cases, descriptions of the bodies because they couldn't identify them. Until 9/11, it was the biggest disaster in U.S. history. These people just didn't have a chance, and it made me so angry.
Looking down at the site of the dam
There are over 1000 unidentified people buried at the Grandview Cemetery.
Flight 93 National Memorial
I'm so impressed with what the park service has done at this site. I don't know how to describe the feeling here; somber, respectful, sad... As I was walking out to the memorial, I heard a dad tell his son, "It's like we're walking on people's graves." The memorial is lovely. You walk along the edge of the debris field until you finally get to the crash site. All of the victim's names are listed.
Looking down the walkway towards the memorial
This is as close as you can get to the actual impact site. That boulder in the distance marks where the plane crashed.
Looking up at the visitor center. One of the exhibits had the video from CNN that morning, which I'll never forget watching. The part that tore me up was the recordings of some of the passengers' final phone calls. They were hard to listen to; I was not the only one crying. It's just so unbearably sad.
This may sound crazy, but I'm actually really afraid of a terrorist attack right now. The White House is in chaos, and the whole world knows it. If something happened, it would give Trump the perfect excuse to say "I told you so" regarding his Muslim ban, and I'm sure he'd try to assume more power.
I knew going into today that it would be emotional, but I still wasn't quite prepared. It just made me so conscious of how quickly everything can change, especially after the canyoneering community lost a dear friend the other day. I'm glad to be going home to my family in a few days. I'm going to hug them extra tight.
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