On April the 1st of each year the Tour officially begins. It is on this date that the 7 “trophy” sites are announced for each state or area and it is on this date that contestants can begin submitting those sites and the other Memorial sites that are in the TOH database. The 1st three people to submit all 7 of the trophy sites for their state or area will get a trophy, and many of the people involved take that seriously enough to begin their “Ride to Remember” at 12:01 am on the 1st. In fact, this is so common and so competitive that many people do the ride on the 1st. and miss getting a trophy by mere minutes because someone else was just a little bit quicker! In the case of Kentucky, the whole route from my house would have been a little over 800 miles if I was to get all of the trophy sites in one ride.
The route would have looked like this:
But since I’m not really doing this ride to win any trophies, and anyway we were dealing with strong storms and possible tornadoes predicted on that day, I didn’t try to win any. But by the end of the day, we did have 3 trophy winners in Kentucky. Congratulations to them! I am going to try and visit as many sites in Kentucky and close to me in Ohio and Indiana as I can but will take my time. The final date for submissions is October 31st, so I’ve got plenty of time. The TOH has a website and an APP that make submitting your pictures very easy. In addition, someone has developed an auxiliary website where you have all of the Memorial and trophy sites shown on a map and grouped by state.
You can click on each individual site and get information on its locations, including addresses. Very handy!
Using this along with my Garmin Basecamp software I have put together some routes that I will use to seek out the sites. I have tried to maximize the efficiency of my routes so that I can get the most sites, in the shortest amount of time, and also avoid running interstate highways as much as possible. My 1st route was kept local here in northern Kentucky and only took me about an hour to accomplish. Unfortunately it was all city riding, but as I did it on a Sunday afternoon, traffic was not a problem. Here’s my route:
My 1st stop was in Newport to collect one of the many 9/11 memorials that I will visit this season. You will also notice the World Peace Bell in the background. It is one of more than 20 such bells around the world and is 12 feet accross with a weight of 66,000 lbs. From 2000-2006 it was the largest swinging bell in the world.
From there I headed to Cresent Springs for another 9/11 Memorial, this time found in a city park.
You may notice that like the Newport Memorial there is a piece of steel girder included in the memorial. Those pieces come from one of the two towers. This is a common theme in many 9/11 memorials.
Next was a different memorial. This one was found way in the pack of an extremely large cemetary in Fort Mitchell and is dedicated to the K9 and Military dogs that have perished during the line of duty.
This one listed the names of the many dogs the memorial honors. I don’t know if you can see it or not but along the base of the memorial, in the grass, someone had left a few doggie toys. Very cool!
Next to Crestview Hills for another 9/11 Memorial. 
If you look closely at the botom you can see the name of a local resident that was killed during the attack.
My final stop of the day was in Florence for another 9/11 Memorial. This one at one of the fire department buildings.
A few things that I find very interesting: One, the variety of the memorials. No two are alike. Secondly, how common they are and yet how hidden they are. At least hidden to most people. I have literally passed many of these memorial’s hundreds of times, I’ve even parked right in front of a few, and yet I had never really seen them until now. Lastly, taking the time look around these memorial sites, and taking the time to read what I find there, is hugely humbling. I’m looking forward to exploring more of these sites and to learning more about Kentucky history along the way. I hope you will consider doing the same in your neck of the woods, believe me it is worth the time and effort.