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TechnoratiCounty commissioners are busy with feasibility studies, zoning papers, planning committees. A national park is coming. Hundreds of thousands of people will visit. They will need restaurants, hotels, gas stations, shops.
"You're here looking at the memorial. There are other opportunities," says Brian Whipkey, editor of the Somerset Daily American. "You can do whitewater rafting, you can do skiing, biking, hiking."
Sept. 11 as a segue to recreation: How far we have come.
Think back to flying after Sept. 11. Right after. Think about the sheer will it took to board an airplane, what felt like to eye the other passengers, to startle at the slightest turbulence.
"People were mortified," recalls Jewel Van Valin, a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines who is based in Los Angeles. "They were all hoping, `We're not going down, are we?'"
The months after the attacks were not kind to the airline industry, and about a year later, Delta opted to save a little money by replacing its linens in first class with paper trays. Van Valin decided to pass out crayons.
She did this because she thought the paper trays were tacky. But after 9/11, flight attendants were also there for emotional comfort _ Van Valin actually held sobbing fliers in her arms _ and the crayons provided a means of release.
Back then they drew firefighters and flags, police officers with tears in their eyes, the skyline of New York. They drew airplanes and they wrote, "In God We Trust."
Now they draw palm trees and hammocks, tropical drinks, Disney characters. They draw destinations. They draw moving on.
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Associated Press writers Matthew Barakat, Kelli Kennedy, Ramit Plushnick-Masti, Solvej Schou and Amy Westfeldt contributed to this report.
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