Michel and Julie: "We Climb Because They Climbed"

Yesterday, I had the privilege of heading over to downtown Dallas with Michel to watch him climb 110 stories in honor of the fallen firefighters of September 11th.

It really was a very humbling experience. While Michel was off getting checked in, getting ready, etc. I made it my mission to find a Starbucks. After all, I had bought a Groupon for Starbucks, had gotten up at 5:15 on a Saturday morning, and hadn't eaten breakfast, so I was very excited about my Starbucks breakfast. Unfortunately, after walking around downtown Dallas for half an hour, following the map on my Smartphone, and not finding a single Starbucks I gave up. Plus, it was almost 8:00 and all the festivities started at 8:00.

The first thing on the program was a group picture:

Michel's over to the far right. Unfortunately, I don't think he ended up in my picture. Oops! I didn't spot him until after I finished snapping pictures :)

The firemen then went off to a courtyard to prepare for their climb. Everything that they did signified something about 9/11/01. Only 343 firefighters are allowed to participate in the climb. 343 is the number of firemen who went into the Towers, and never came back out.

The firefighters had to climb 110 stories - the same number of stories that was in the World Trade Towers. This is the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Dallas. It's only 55 stories, so the men climbed to the top, took the elevator back down, and then climbed again.

The climb began at 8:46 AM - the exact time that the first plane ran into the first tower. The men were led into the building by a group of men playing the bagpipes. The first video is the start of the men filing into the building to the Marine Corps song. I forgot to mention that each fireman wore a picture around his neck of a firefighter that lost his life in the tower. As they walked into the building, they touched a piece of steel that was from the actual tower.

The second video is Michel walking in. I apologize for the poor video quality, and I'm not sure if you can see Michel in it or not. I had prime front row seats, and then the bagpipers stood right in front of me. Hope you can spot him!

Once the men entered the building we couldn't see anything anymore, so I walked around with some other Allen firefighters' wives. We checked out the t-shirts that were being sold, and I finally got me some coffee! And an egg and sausage breakfast burrito (which, by the way, was the absolute BEST breakfast burrito that I've ever eaten!). We walked around a bit and snapped some pictures.

About an hour and a half after they started, the Allen firefighters all finished together. Well...they finished at different times, but they waited at the top for all the men (and women!) to finish, and walked out together.