Day 5 - homeward bound
I woke today - well let's be honest, I had a slight headache, my sleeping bag was still damp from the prior days rains, it was a bit chilly and my hips hurt from sleeping on the ground with a pad that helps but doesn't soften the ground. But on the bright side - literally - the sun was coming up. There might be a day without rain. It's a beautiful morning - I think I'll go outside and just smile.
The air is crisp but not cold. Folks get up and breakfast is "continental" - that's apparently fancy for lazy. It's eat what you got without having to cook or even boil water. Most eat snack bars or granola if they have it left. Some eat dry oatmeal packets. We shoot to leave at 8 but we leave sometime after 8:30 so not terrible....
Now my van is in need of gas, the light isn't on but it's getting close so gas is top of mind. When I still had data coverage we saw that the closest gas was about 20 minutes away but it is along the way home so I decided to get it then. However, we decided yesterday to take a bit of a detour. We are going to visit the memorial to the 911 flight 93. So as we leave camp rather than head south we head north. Bit of a panic, but not much as i did see gas stations up north as well at about the same distance. However, after 10 or so minutes bro m turns into a road that I personally would t consider a major one. Now the tension level gets a little higher. Worse case scenario we run out of gas and he has to drive to buy a container and some gas and come back. But I generally try to avoid that if I can. The light come on. Now we are on the clock, I think we have about 30 miles. We use the car nav system and see that the direction we are heading doesn't look promising but it does look long. I'm trying to coast down the hills, carry speed up and accelerate slowly to nurse it as far as we can. Eric manages to get his phone to pull up a station and the closest one is 15 miles away. Ok, now have a target. It is actually mind boggling to me that so many people live more than 10 miles from the nearest gas station. We manage to sip fuel and make it to a gas station. Sort of anticlimactic ending but hey, I'll take it.
We arrive at her location we found on like only to see the road is closed and they have a new entrance for us to use - so we drive the 3 miles to the new gate and then nearly 3 miles out to the memorial. Surprised how full the parking lot is. Lots of motorbikes. The memorial has a black path that traces the flight path of the plane. There is a guest center where they have information on 9/11. They have phone messages left by folks on the plane which really bring it home. Real people who actually died. I've heard some of the stories and imho they sort of didn't portray what all took place. I think they were trying to make it a memorial to everyone on the plane but some of the heroic decisions, again in my opinion, were sort of given short shrift. After we finish inside we walk down to the crash site and the memorial wall. I thought it was impactful but not sure the boys felt that way. You can ask them. Nice spot to visit but probably wouldn't make a 3 hour trip for it - see it on the way somewhere sometime.
We loaded up and stopped for subway on the way home. We get home in time for Bro m to get to his stake conference meeting - sorry about that. ;)
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