I didn't really get to talk to my wife much during that day. A call early "Did you see what happened in New York?" Another "Do you know if they're closing the schools?"

An uncharacteristic call to my buddy and hiking partner working near Philly. Usually we communicated by email during the day. Never by phone. Backpacking plans on hold for now. Discussing how in the world someone could get control of those planes. "Well," I said "all they would have to do is fly them, guide them, right? They wouldn't need to know how to land them."

Late in the afternoon they reached my cousin's fiance. There had been some mix up with her reservations at the last minute and she actually had to stay at a different hotel about a mile from The Trade Center. She was getting ready to head to the conference there when events began to unfold. Cell traffic in and out of New York was jammed almost immediately so she had been unable to let anyone know.

My aunt reached my uncle while he was on the D.C. beltway on his way to his appointment. He doesn't usually have the radio on when driving so as soon as she told him what had happened he cancelled his sales call and drove straight home to Allentown.

My older daughters said they watched some of it on TV in school but not much.

I have been to many Civil War and Revolutionary battlefields. Memorials and cemeteries and so on.

I have never been to Ground Zero.

But I have another cousin who lives a stone's throw from Shanksville, as she did on that day.

Not long after 9/11 I became godfather to her youngest daughter. On the drive home we stopped in Shanksville.

A clear day like 9/11 was. A couple dozen cars in a makeshift parking area. Makeshift memorial board with pictures taped and thumb-tacked on. A chain link fence to keep folks back.

And, despite the small crowd, absolute silence except for the wind.

It was, and still is, the most hallowed, and humbling, place I've ever visited.