it was a crystal blue morning....

[catland]

We were having breakfast at a small restaurant north of Crater Lake. Being after Labor Day, we were the only two customers in the place. The day before, September 10th, we had taken the hike down the trail at Crater Lake to go on the boat tour on the lake from inside the extinct volcano. One of the boat tour guides mentioned that the walls of the caldera were taller than the tallest buildings in New York City.

The waiter at the restaurant told us - he said that a plane had hit the building. We both thought that some idiot in a 2-seater Cessna was to blame, so we kept eating our breakfast. We had to fetch our own coffee refill because he was in the other room. It was only when we paid our bill and looked at the TV that the horrible reality started to sink in. We went back to our motel room to pack, and that was when the first tower fell. I remember the newscaster saying "the building is gone", and the other newsperson asked for clarification - "do you mean the side of the building?" - and the first person said - "no, the building" - and that is when I realized that I had just watched thousands of people die.

It was a beautiful September day - just like today.

[Karen]

I was at work, and my boss had a small TV in his office. One of my coworkers came in the room, and told me a plane had hit the World Trade Tower in NYC, and to come see the TV, then we were watching, stunned, as the second plane hit, live. Not long afterwards, we heard about the other planes, and suddenly there were screams of anguish from the business below ours: the proprietor's boyfriend was on one of the flights from Boston that hit the WTC.

As LH has said, I called him, they hadn't had the news on.

The rest of the day was odd, and the skies overhead were utterly silent, for once, only broken by the occasional scream of fighter jets patrolling the airspace.

And that evening had already been scheduled the calling hours for a dear woman from our church who had succumbed to breast cancer, at far too young an age.