20 | August | 2018 | Dunngone's Photos and Blog

After visiting the Flight 93 National Memorial yesterday, we drove to Mt. Pleasant, PA, to the Laurelville Mennonite Church Center (LMCC), our residence for the next 6 days and nights. We are here to participate in the Road Scholar Bicycling on the Great Allegheny Passage in the Laurel Highlands.

As participants trickled in, registration materials were distributed, dinner was served, and a meeting of introductions and discussion of the week’s activities followed. Meanwhile, bicycles were loaded in a cargo trailer and on top of the shuttle van. We spent the rest of the evening getting acquainted with the other participants.

LMCC Lodging for the week

Bicycle are loaded on top of the shuttle van

This particular Road Scholar program features a 5-day bicycle ride of the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP). The GAP stretches 150 miles across beautiful scenery in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The GAP is a 150 mile Rails-to-Trails rail trail extending from Cumberland, Maryland, to Point State Park in downtown Pittsburgh. It uses abandoned Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, Union Railroad, and the Western Maryland Railway.

LMCC was founded in 1943 by a small group of Mennonites, wanting to create a wholesome place for Mennonite youth to spend their leisure time—a new phenomenon created as Mennonites began moving off of farms – in a way that would “mean the most to them physically, spiritually, and otherwise.” From its inception, Laurelville hosted non-Mennonite groups on-site as well. In the early years, there were only a few families or non-Mennonite Christian groups using Laurelville facilities, but this ministry boomed in the 80s and 90s and currently makes up approximately 80% of Laurelville’s business. We found that as best as could be determined, modern Mennonites are very much like other protestant churches, as opposed to the Old Order Mennonites.

Curved walls near the Visitor Center

Today, we toured the Flight 93 National Memorial. The memorial is located southeast of Pittsburgh some 45 miles, on a flat plain high atop the mountains. In the Visitor Center itself, a somber feeling of sadness, and intense anger permeated our very beings; I was so emotionally overwhelmed by artifacts and personal stories from the crash that I had to leave the building. God help us if something like this happens now.

The National Memorial is in two parts: the upper area where the Visitor Center and towering, curved walls are located and the lower area where a wall memorializes the crew and passengers, listing their names. The entire memorial is well done, with many symbolisms, etc. For example, the walls adjacent to the Visitor Center follow the flight path of Flight 93 just before it crashed. The slight curve is almost imperceptible, until viewed from a distance, particularly looking at the crash site. The crash site itself is marked by a huge boulder, underneath where the remains of the plane are buried.