The cache is NOT at the posted coordinates. The final coordinates will come from the 9/11 Memorials Upper Willamette Valley Adventure Lab:
I am originally from New York. I grew up in Brooklyn and later moved to Nyack, NY, about 20 miles north of the city along the Hudson River. My Dad worked in the financial district and remembered seeing the WTC built in the early 1970s. My third date with my wife was to the Twin Towers observation deck.
We moved from NY to Oregon in 1990. During any trip I made to NY, I usually wound up at WTC for some reason. I took the image above from Jersey City, NJ, two weeks before the fateful day. My wife and I then took the PATH train to the World Trade Center. We discussed on the train and in the shopping mall below the Towers about going to the observation deck but decided we had other things to do and would do it on a future trip; little did we know that would be the last time we would see the Twin Towers.
On 9/10/2001, I flew to San Jose, CA, to start a temporary assignment in Fremont, with my wife and kids staying in Salem. My wife called me early that Tuesday morning, telling me to turn on the TV at the hotel. At the time, I was reading a lot of Tom Clancy and other Techno-Thriller books, so at first, I thought I was watching one of my books as the chaos unfolded in NYC. I went to work, and needless to say, not much got done that day; we were watching TV and listening to the radio. I was worried about my family back home. My office was right under the flight paths to San Jose, SFO, and Oakland Airports. Typically, we'd hear plans every couple of minutes. For 2~3 days, the air was eerily silent.
Two weeks later, I flew home for a few days; everything changed with flying. The planes were virtually empty. Due to my Dad's health, I flew a lot for the next couple of years in New York City. I went to GZ each time. Going to High School in Nyack, I have friends who had friends or family members that perished that day.
I have been to the museum in New York, which I highly recommend, but it is hard to go through. I also went to the Flight 93 memorial in Pennsylvania this past year, which was again worth it, but it is hard to go through. I still cannot watch certain videos from that day.
I am grateful for the memorials in the Willamette Valley and saddened to learn that Oregon has a connection to Flight 93. Thank you for visiting all the AL stops and finding this bonus cache. It means a lot to me to share them with the geocaching community.
Now, to find the final waypoint.
Each waypoint for the AL will have a digit that is part of the final coordinates for the cache. Here are the final coordinates:
N44 5A.BCD W123 1A.DBE
Please do not stop on the side of Highway 22; pull off on the side road to access the cache.