The view from Atlanta

By Joe and Sharon Chiaramonte: We were in Atlanta on the way to the airport for a late-morning flight.

We were going to stop at our daughter's to say goodbye when we heard on the radio a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. The talk morning show on the radio was kind of kidding around, and we thought it was a morning show joke.

As we pulled up to our daughter's, she came running out and said another plane had just crashed into the other tower. We sat there watching in horror as the tragedy unfolded. The airport closed, and we made our way back to our hotel to see if we could check back in, which they were very kind to let us have a room back.

Every day for the next three days we checked out of our hotel as they would say the airport was going to open, only to turn around every day as they would come on and say one more day.

On the third day we rented a car and drove all the way back to Cedar Rapids. On the way there was not one jet stream in the air, which was very strange. We saw American flags along the way that people had put out and signs saying God bless America. The radio was playing patriotic songs, and we remembered how proud we were to be Americans.

We will never forget how close we were to being on a plane and how lucky we were to be able to see our only daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law, who were 1,000 miles away, and how proud we are of this country!