story490.xml

story490.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-05-01

My husband and I were married on September 9, 2001 in Philadelphia after moving from Jersey City, NJ earlier that month. We had planned on leaving on our cross-country, road trip across America honeymoon to our new home in Tucson, AZ on 9/11. We wanted to sleep in after an exhausting week, month, year of preparation. The phone rang incessently from about 9:45 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. when I finally picked up the phone. It was my mother.

"You're not going anywhere. Turn on the TV," she said.

I did and saw for the first time what was happening across the river from my former apartment and down town from my former job. I was horrified.

It was a horrible days as we called all of our loved ones to find out that they were safe. My sister-in-law had been in the air on a flight from Newark to San Francisco (same as United Flight 93), which departed at 9 a.m. She was one of the lucky ones. Though she was stranded in Ohio for three days.

We left on the evening of September 12 for our road trip, figuring we needed to get to our new home in Tucson. We needed to begin our new life together. We traveled for two and a half weeks and watched the country mourn and unite. It was the most fascinating experience of our lives.