Our Own California Adventure - Leg 1 UPDATED 6/16 - Page 3 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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We were quickly nearing the end of the first half of our trip. DFiL had to work most of today and we were going to meet up with him later in the day. After the morning ritual of me getting up before the crack of dawn, waiting for the boys to wake up, and eating breakfast down in the hotel breakfast area, we decided to go back to La Purisima mission to hike up the trail to the giant cross. Besides after all those ghost stories, DS was determined to find something supernatural.
It was a beautiful day, cooler in town by the ocean but in the 70's up towards the mission. We started towards the trail where we were met by one of our favorite things in California, dangerous wild animal signs.
DH instantly gets a little anxious and of course DS, being a miniature version of DH, gets nervous as well. I calmly told them both the snakes are more afraid of you than you are of them so I wouldn't be too worried about it. We started climbing up the trail. It didn't take long for DH and I to realize this entire thing is made of sand! We learned later these hills and mountains were pushed up from the ocean so they're covered in sand and even a few shells.
Yep, all sand. Our legs were on fire! It was like being on a never ending stairmaster but in sand. DS of course probably could have sprinted up the darn thing without any problems.
Lots of pretty wildflowers along the way.
Just when DH and I thought we may die and began wondering whose brilliant idea this was, we finally arrived at the top.
There's Lompoc in the distance.
Part of the mission buildings.
The way back down is always so much easier.
We wandered the mission some more and stopped at some of the buildings we hadn't seen before. Turns out we'd only seen about half of it before and there were still areas we never got to.
DS wanted to go swimming and since he thought this was our last day before we left tomorrow (hee hee ) we told him we could go swimming after lunch. We grabbed a quick bite at Burger King and went back to the hotel. It was a little chilly for DH and I so we skipped actually swimming and sat in some lounge chairs poolside while DS had the pool to himself. DS of course had a blast. I put him in swim lessons last year so he was showing me all the different strokes he learned. I did some crossword puzzles and DH did some reading. It was nice to just lounge in the sun for a bit.
Afterwards we went to DFiL's house to visit for a bit. He called a friend of his to come over so he could see us to. His friend, Ramon, is such a great person and has had a pretty interesting life. He moved here from Mexico years ago. In Mexico he owned a farm, ran a wedding pavillion, and told us how he and a relative would take a sheet and a movie projector from village to village showing the movie to earn money. Now he has a landscaping business and managed to purchase 3 homes after the real estate crash. He and his family lives in 1 and rents the other 2. He's worked so hard for everything he has it made us happy to hear how well he's doing. Ramon and his family really do look out for DFiL and DFiL helps him navigate financial paperwork, business things, etc. It gives us piece of mind knowing DFiL isn't completely on his own out there. It was great to get to see him again. He couldn't believe it had been as long as it had either since we were last there. We stayed for a bit until DFiL was obviously ready for us to go and we needed to get some dinner. We ended up at this place called Floriana's for Mexican food. Ever go into a restaurant which is a complete dive, not fancy at all, and you just know it's going to be great food? This was one of those places. We took the food to go and just ate back at our hotel. It was fantastic! I could eat that veggie burrito 4 times a week easy.
We really didn't do much else today. Kind of a laid back lazy day. DH and I couldn't wait til tomorrow. DS thought the plan was to go to LA for the day, then catch a flight home later. We'd been waiting so long to see his reaction and it was finally almost here!
Another early morning for me, then breakfast for everyone. It's the same routine every day. We packed up the car and went to DFiL's office to say our goodbyes. It was nice seeing him and everyone had a good time. One of the things I love about going to see DFiL is he seems to understand you need a balance of family visiting time along with 'alone' time where we can explore and enjoy our vacation too. He has to work at least part of the time while we're there anyway so it works out well.
Once we were done with hugs and goodbyes, we started the 2 hours or so drive to LA. We wanted to take DH through some of Beverly Hills, the La Brea Tar Pits, and Hollywood Blvd.
Along the drive, those little dots out there in the ocean are oil rigs. DFiL told us some people were fighting some proposed wind farms out in the ocean because they think it will ruin the view. How it's any worse than oil rigs everywhere is beyond DH and I.
If he only knew what was in store tonight!
Let me just say neither DH nor myself are really all that big of fans of LA. It's not even because it's a big city or anything, we're used to Chicago. It just seems either very plastic and fake or kind of dirty and run down. It's a strange place of complete opposites in a matter of blocks.
Once we arrived we drove through some of Beverly Hills, which DS didn't really seem all that interested in. So we kind of skipped right through to La Brea Tar Pits. Traffic was horrible and for some reason we couldn't find where we wanted to be, even with a GPS. I was getting really frustrated and about to give up when we found it. DH was so encouraging the whole time, telling me I'm doing a great job navigating. Sweet but probably not completely true.
DS was surprised at how much the tar pits stink. It's easy to see how animals would get caught up in this stuff. It just looks like mud. We like watching the bubbles come to the surface and burst.
A current excavation site. It's dug down and boards are placed above the tar for workers to stand on.
Crates and crates filled with specimens they've recovered from the excavation site.
Next we went to Hollywood Blvd to the Kodak Theater, and Grauman's Chinese Theater.
I couldn't resist taking a picture.
Helen Mirren did this one 2 days ago and it's still drying. Kind of neat to see how they make these.
It was getting very warm by now, much warmer than it had been in Lompoc.
We had lunch at the Disney Soda Shop. Pretty tasty and DS was happy to get some Disney in this trip after all, little did he know.
After lunch, we were walking by the El Capitan theater and I stopped under the entry way because the ceiling caught my eye. It was very intricate and pretty. While I was standing there, an employee came over and asked if we'd like to take a quick tour. Of course! She took us inside and up to the balcony level, talking all about the theater's history. There's all sorts of memorabilia in there and the whole place has a feel of time gone by. She was telling us how they all really enjoy it there and how the theater goes all out for different premiers. The last Pirate's movie premiered here and she said the all dressed up like pirates and there was even a large pirate ship. She was so nice and it was a great little surprise for us.
By now it was getting later in the afternoon and we needed to start driving to DL so we could return the car on time. DH managed to back over a small plastic pilon in the parking garage. It just pops out of the ground but still it was so darn funny. I had tears I was laughing so hard. He's freaking out about what to do about it which just made it even funnier. He at least saw the humor in it too.
So that about covers the first leg of our adventure! I'll start a new thread over in the DL section in the next day or so where DS finally learns about the big surprise!
Great trip report! We are planning a similar trip for next summer for our 25th wedding anniversary. Can't wait to see the big surprise revealed!! Congratulations on Lily Pie!!
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We learned later these hills and mountains were pushed up from the ocean so they're covered in sand and even a few shells.
) we told him we could go swimming after lunch. We grabbed a quick bite at Burger King and went back to the hotel. It was a little chilly for DH and I so we skipped actually swimming and sat in some lounge chairs poolside while DS had the pool to himself. DS of course had a blast. I put him in swim lessons last year so he was showing me all the different strokes he learned. I did some crossword puzzles and DH did some reading. It was nice to just lounge in the sun for a bit.
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