Where were you?!?

(Excerpt from journal of our Alaska trip.  We had been in Alaska for 10 days and were having the time of our lives.  Caleb was 4 years old, Jonas was 2 years old and Miriam was barely 1.  Sorry for the poor copies of some of the pictures, they are scanned in from our scrapbook)

11 September 2001
  We were awakened by the cell phone ringing.  It was Keith's parents telling us that terrorists had driven a plane into one of the World Trade Center towers. 

We turned on the car to listen to the radio and warm up the car.  After a while listening to the radio, we drove around listening to the radio.  We were, as probably most people were, kind of in a stupor, in shock.  Finally, we decided to find a coin operated laundry and wash some clothes.  We found a nice big one and I went in and started washing the clothes.... They had a TV on in there so I got Keith and told him.  We let the kids sleep in the car outside the door by the window where we could watch them.  I don't know how long we were there.  The kids woke up and, luckily, there were some jungle gym type toys for them to play with.  Keith and I sat glued to the TV.  We watched the second plane crash into the other tower and we watched them both collapse.

Keith took the van and went out to get some breakfast from McDonalds, which we ate at the laundromat.  We finished the laundry and packed it all back up in the suitcases again.  We didn't know what to do, didn't know if we could even get out of Alaska, or if we did, if we could get back into the "lower 48."
   Finally, we decided we couldn't just stay in the laundromat forever so we went to see the University of Alaska Museum...... At the museum, I almost didn't want to get out of the car and be that far away from a radio, but we did go in....(here I tell about the museum, Babe the blue ox, mosquito totem pole, 10 foot bear ect)
   We still couldn't decide if we were going to be able to get across the borders and if we should stay in Fairbanks.  We made our way to see the Trans-Alaska pipeline.  Apparently, the best place to see it around Fairbanks is about 10 miles north on the Steese Highway.  It was neat to see the pipeline.  Miriam could have stood up inside it with no problems, possibly even Jonas......

   There was a little visitor's center there but it was closed and had a sign on it that said, "Due to recent events we are closed."  Then we remembered that ALL planes were grounded, even the planes that patrol the pipelines.  The pipeline was the biggest concern during all the terrorist attacks.  They couldn't even patrol it very effectively without planes.  With images of exploding pipelines in our minds, we left.
   North Pole is about 10 miles away from Fairbanks.  What a charming place. The street lamps are all candy canes.  They have roads with names such as Santa Claus Lane. 

Jonas was having a hard time breathing so we stopped at the Santaland RV Park.  No one was in the laundromat but we were kind of desperate.  I plugged him in and then I watched the news on the TV there.... (Here I tell about Santa Claus House, sitting on Santa's lap, buying ornaments and postcards to mail to ourselves with the North Pole postmark).
   At about 8:30 or 9:00 pm we got back on the road and headed toward Delta Junction.  We drove by Eielson Air Force Base where cars were still backed up waiting to be searched so they could enter.  There were also quite a few people around in their fatigues.  We had heard on the radio all day that no one was allowed to leave the base and only a few select people were being let in.  School on the base had also been closed.
  I was still a little worried about Jonas' breathing and also a little freaked out over 9-11 so I talked Keith into getting a hotel that night......It was probably 11:00 or 12:00 when we reached there.  I noticed that the only other people staying there were 3 red trucks that had something about Aleyska, which, I believe is the company that owns the Alaskan Pipeline.  I didn't sleep well for listening to Jonas and heard the trucks start up and leave at about 4:00 in the morning.  I think maybe they were patrolling the pipeline since they couldn't do it by plane.....

Flowers from the Canadians for 9-11

.....While I was holding Jonas for his treatment I saw a sign on the bulletin board that said something to the effect "we feel the pain of our neighbors (USA) and decry terrorism."  It was really interesting to me how much 9-11 affected EVERYONE.  We kind of got to see everyone's perspective on the radio while we travelled through the area.  Alaskans were afraid for the pipeline.  Canadians were "how can we support the US and where would they stand if the US goes to war... would Canadians fight too?"

   That was 10 years ago and now we live in a completely different world.  I'm so grateful for our country.  Especially for the men and women in uniform (of all sorts) that are so quick to give their lives to preserve what we hold dear. 

NEVER FORGET!!!

Where were you on that fateful day??