National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 60 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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When I first read what you said about the elephant and camel buttes, I thought you said "butts" but then I re-read it. And all of those animals seem like they were left out in the middle of nowhere...the horses, goats and dog!
Don't worry - you are not alone, that's what I thought it said at first as well!
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Wednesday 14 September – part five: what an unbelievable view!
We took the scenic drive over to Artist Point and we were so glad that we had, as my goodness, it was just an unbelievable view from here. I could see why it had been named this way. It was just perfect. The other nice thing was how quiet it was here. When we’d first set off on our trip, there had been loads of guided tours on open sided vehicles and whenever they turned up, they’d spill a load of people on top of the overlook, who of course would all be talking and would spoil the atmosphere. It was so nice to just be here with a few other people and that was it.
However, sadly it wasn’t the same at the next stop we came to, which was the North Window Overlook. Here, the guided tours all caught up with us again and we were able to get a couple of minutes’ peace and quiet before the melee descended. As soon as they did, we didn’t stay long and moved on.
Looking back to where we’d started from
From there, we slowly started to make our way back to our starting point, getting a few more photos on the way.
Then it was the exit to the park, up some pretty steep hills and boy did you need a good run-up to conquer these! Mark had jokingly asked if I wanted to drive when we got into the park and I told him : thanks and now I was very, very glad that he was driving. I must admit in the last hills out of the park that I just closed my eyes and let him do what he needed to do. We all got past the slow moving Chevy Impala – how that thing ever made it up the hill, I do not know.
The state of our poor car at the end of it all!
We headed back to the visitor centre and parked up, eating our lunch that we had got earlier in Wal-Mart. By now, it was about 3:30pm, so it was a very, very late lunch, but exactly what we needed to get us going again.
We went inside for a restroom stop and checked out the gift shop again, but found nothing else in there that we wanted, so we headed back to the car. We could see that there was a storm coming in the distance and we watched with some amusement and some pity those poor souls going out on the guided tours now. Remember that these have open sides. My goodness, if that storm makes it here, then they are going to get soaked.
We were also intrigued by this bus – my German isn’t that great and perhaps Sabine can help with this, but I think this is a bus that you sleep on?
Just a quick note on this - as you may have noticed from one of my many countdowns, we're off to Amsterdam, so there won't be anymore updates on this trip report now until we're back on Sunday.
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And all of those animals seem like they were left out in the middle of nowhere...the horses, goats and dog!
Katie's graduation
It was so nice to just be here with a few other people and that was it. 
: thanks and now I was very, very glad that he was driving. 
Have a great time in Amsterdam! 
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