Always Remember Them

Last month we were out geocaching and I specifically wanted to grab a cache named Always Remember Them because it was placed in memory of those who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks.  At the cache location was a steel beam that was an artifact from the Twin Towers.

I have to say, it was quite an emotional experience to stand there and actually reach out and touch that steel beam.  Just to know what it had withstood and it's journey from New York to Illinois.  Just thinking about the thousands of people who had been trapped inside the building that was supported by this beam.  Chilling, to say the least.  And very sobering.

Our geocaching adventure that day took us to a variety of locations and we saw a lot of interesting things.  One of the stops was at a cache named Mill Races in Carpentersville, along the Fox River.  Back in 1850 Julius Carpenter bought the dam here and for the next 50 years he used the dam and a mill race system to power industry along the river. 

Here I am standing on the wheel that controlled the water.  From the cache page:  The mill races were man made trenches that ran parallel to the main river channel and were used to control the mill's water wheels. Water from the dam was diverted into the mill race. The amount of water flowing into the mill race was controlled by a sluice gate at the entrance. A sluice gate also controlled speed of water flowing from the mill race back into the river system. This gates were adjusted to control the amount of water flowing through the water wheels depending on the mill's power requirements. The structure at the cache location is the old sluice gate.

From there we went and did an earth cache called Algonquin Gaging Station.  We had to locate the water gauge and determine some information in order to log the cache....

We grabbed another couple of caches in a park....

Near a restaurant.....

 On the river....

Another park.....

And near a Veterans Memorial....

Then on the way home we drove past City Hall in Des Plaines and realized they too had a 9/11 memorial, so we stopped to snap a few pictures there as well....

Last month I did a review on a fabulous book called The Stories They Tell.  If you didn't get a chance to read it, I urge you to go back and do so.  The book is a masterpiece about the 9/11 events with photos and a complete timeline, plus stories about the survivors as well as a look into the lives of the unfortunate one's who perished. 

Always Remember Them!  Have you seen any of the 9/11 memorials yet?