My wife and I had just spent our first night on vacation camping alone (no kids) up in Acadia National Park. It was a stellar, crisp autumn morning, incredibly clear blue sky. We had just finished our first breakfast. I had left strict instructions that we were not to be called by anyone for any reason unless there was a severe emergency. My wife and I had jumped into the van, headed for our favorite lobsterman (we'd been up there many times before) and had just about reached him when my cell phone rang. I was extremely pissed. When I answered, my oldest daughter said that an airplane had hit one of the towers in NY. I told her that, while terrible, it didn't warrant a call to me and to just relax and that airplanes had hit tall buildings in NY before. She didn't tell me anything else and we hung up. We continued onto our destination when my phone rang again. Now I was fuming. This time, however, she was crying and told me a second plane had hit a tower. Now my interest was peaked. We pulled over in Bar Harbor and walked into a bar that had a TV on. That's when we saw what had happened and we were awe-struck as you all were, I'm sure.
We only stayed for about half an hour. We couldn't stand it any longer and left to continue heading for our destination albeit a lot more subdued and less enthusiastic than earlier. When we got to our lobster guy, he told us that this would be the last lobster available because the boats were forbidden to continue fishing. As we stood there, a Navy boat drifted across the mouth of Frenchman's bay. We made our purchase and talked about what we should do. When we got back to our campground we decided that we would try to salvage our precious time away as best we could and continue with our time there. We started by going to the visitor's center to grab some literature. There we saw, first hand, how the attack was going to affect the public. There was one woman crying in the corner on her husband's shoulder. No one was talking at a place where there is usually a boisterous din occurring. It was like a church. We headed back to our campsite and turned on our emergency radio to try to glean just what had happened. It was pretty awful as you all know. That was pretty much it. We decided to leave the next morning as it wasn't practical to leave sooner.
We decided to take all back roads home, staying off the interstate figuring that we'd have a better chance of surviving should something else happen. What we noticed on the way home, however, was stunning. I think that at every 100', there was a new American flag waving hanging off of every conceivable implement and off of every building from Maine to Connecticut. The amount of patriotism that we witnessed on the drive home was unparalleled as far as I can recall. Too bad we seem to have lost that just a few short years later.
We also decided to get the family all together incase there was another emergency so we drove through Worchester and picked up our freshman daughter at Assumption College. She was thrilled to see us. The school had closed for the time being. We drove home to Enfield and unpacked and the entire family, all three kids and my mother-in-law came to stay with us as we all watched this terrible event unfold. That lasted about five days and then everyone headed back to their digs.
Allow me to tell you about another buddy, however. He and I sometimes travel by float plane to the Great North Woods up in North-Western Maine for a week at a time for wilderness fly-fishing. The pilot lands in a pond, drops us off and we fish and hike for the week and then the pilot comes to pick us up. We have no phones or electricity or any way to communicate with anyone on the outside. We're in the true wilderness, totally on our own. My buddy was up there during this time. When the towers were hit, all flying was cancelled as you all know. No planes were allows to go anywhere for any reason. So, my buddy said they had finished up their time and had retreated to the rendezvous point for pick up. They didn't have a clue. Guess what. No plane. He said they all thought they had screwed up the date. They set up a small camp and waited. They had no idea that the plane wasn't going to come. They had no more food outside of snacks, too. They were in the middle of 10,000 square miles of wilderness with no way home outside of hiking out. My pilot buddy called the FAA and explained that he had guys stranded in the wilderness and needed to go get them out. He was denied, period. Well, that wasn't going to go over well with him. He decided to ignore the denial and took off anyway flying literally at tree-top level below any possible radar. He said it was a wild ride. He successfully grabbed the stranded crew explaining what had happened and got them back to base without an incident. That pilot took a lot of chances but got them all home successfully.
I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of stories like this on from all across the country. It's a somber day to remember for sure. In a couple of weeks my wife and I will once again return to Acadia and try to enjoy another full week tent camping in the crisp ocean air as Autumn descends on Acadia once again. Hopefully this time we'll make the entire week.
Rome