TEN YEARS AGO TODAY

September 11, 2001 was a beautiful day.  My sister and I were vacationing in Mystic, CT.  We remarked that morning how blue the sky was and the weather was the perfect temperature.

Mystic is a beautiful little town that was once a major seaport in colonial New England.

 

We had been there for a few days.  We had seen the Mystic Aquarium, Mystic Seaport, and had spent some time in Olde Mistick Village, taking pictures.  We noticed that there was a restaurant in the village that served breakfast, so we got ready and went there to eat.

 

We kept hearing about an accident, but didn't know what had happened.

After eating, we wandered around the village a little bit and then crossed the street to our hotel and started packing up to go home.  Elaine was in the bathroom brushing her teeth and I sat on one of the beds and turned on Good Morning America.  They were showing a picture of a burning building and mentioned that it was one of the Twin Towers.  I called into Elaine and asked if that wasn't where she and her friend had eaten once.  She said yes.  I told her it was on fire.  She came into the room, holding her toothbrush and together in horror we watched the second plane fly into the other tower.

Then we saw the Pentagon.  We didn't know what to do.  Here we were in Connecticut and to get back to New Jersey we had to drive through New York City.  Obviously we couldn't do that.  We were both in shock by this time and so confused.  Finally we decided to try to get as close to home as possible.  We had some money if we had to get a hotel room for the night.  And if no hotels were available, we thought we could sleep in the car.

We went back to Mistick Village and bought lots of water and snacks because we didn't know if we would be able to find someplace to eat or drink.  We also went to the bathroom because we didn't know when we would find another restroom.  Then we started out on I-95.

We had to drive the entire width of the state.  All along the highway there were signs saying "NYC closed.  Please use another route."  I thought this was a historic day and took pictures of them.  We had the radio on too, changing stations as they faded out so that we knew what was going on.

We got as far as we could and stopped at a rest stop that happened to be open.  (Some of them weren't.)  All the people there were so nice.  We bought a map and tried to decide what route to take.  One of the rest stop workers came over to us and helped us determine which way to go.  He said he would pray for us.  The other travelers looked as shell-shocked as we were.

We ended up traveling north into Massachusetts, west into northern New York state, and then south (west of NYC) into northern New Jersey and from there to my sister's house.  It took us all day to do what was a 2 1/2 hour trip there.

I will never forget this day as long as I live.  It was the worst day of my life.  It is so sad that there is so much hate and evil in the world.  People do not want to follow God's laws.  We need to never forget this day and to pray for all men. We need to pray for healing for the friends and families of those who died.  Only God can heal this land.