September 11, 2001, was an extraordinary day for me and my wife Sandra in more ways than one.<br />
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We were into the third day of a long-awaited and much-anticipated vacation to Niagra Falls, Ontario, just across the border from Buffalo, New York.<br />
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We awoke that Tuesday morning and looked out our window and down onto the falls and headed off to breakfast. But that was the end of normalcy for that day and the rest of the week for us as well as millions around the world. The rest of the week seemed like a dream.<br />
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Sitting in that hotel room ten years ago, watching our homeland being attacked, we were so far from home - not knowing as the events unfolded on the TV screen before us how or when we would get back home.<br />
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It was something of a hopeless feeling.<br />
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All we could do for most of that day was sit in our room, our eyes glued to the television, watching like millions of other of our countrymen as the White House and Capitol were evacuated, the Twin Towers fell, the Pentagon burned and a jetliner crashed in a ball of flames into the Pennsylvania countryside. A day trip to Toronto was postponed until the next day. We did finally get out of the room, but the last thing on our minds was sightseeing. <br />
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"What does all this mean,?" we wondered. "Are more attacks planned? How and when will we be able to get back home?" But ours was a minor dilemma compared to the thousands who had died that day and thousands more who were directly affected by the attacks.<br />
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Everywhere we went during the remainder of our stay in Ontario, we saw Canadian flags lowered to half-staff in a show of sympathy and support for Canada's neighbor to the south.<br />
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For a time the two bridges that connect Niagara Falls, New York, with Niagara Falls, Ontario, were closed to all traffic. That didn't last but perhaps a day or two and by the time we got ready to leave, one bridge had been reopened.<br />
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Our problem was we had flown to Buffalo and the rental car we had was one that could not be taken out of New York or Ontario. So, with all airplanes grounded, nationwide, indefinitely, we began frantically searching for a rental car that could get us home. We finally located one.<br />
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When we crossed into Canada Sunday Sept. 9 we were waved right on over by the Canadian border guard almost nonchalantly: "Where are you from? Where are you going? Got any liquor? Got any cigarettes? Have a nice stay in Canada."<br />
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But crossing back into New York on Sept. 13, the U.S. border guards practically took our car apart - pulling out and looking under the back seat, taking all our luggage out of the trunk and going through it. <br />
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We got our new rental car and headed south.<br />
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What was to have been a two-hour flight home turned into a two-day drive back to Gainesville.<br />
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Through Erie, Penn., Pittsburgh, Charleston, West Va., and scores of much smaller places - it was all anyone wanted to talk about. We met other people in the same boat we were - driving back home when we were supposed to be flying. We arrived late in the day on Friday Sep. 14. <br />
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Our journey was over. Our vacation seemed a blur. The whole week like a dream, a bad dream. And, in some respects, it still seems that way, a decade later. <br />
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A bad dream from which you can't awake.<br />
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<I>(Ken Stanford is the Newsroom Manager for WDUN AM 550, WDUN 102.9 FM, 1240 ESPN RADIO and AccessNorthGa.com. Parts of this column were taken from one published in 2006.)<I><br />
