Gatlinburg ... a Practically Unplanned Adventure! June 27 - July 5, 2009 - Page 6 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Thanks, all. I wish I had gotten a picture of the gorilla as he was banging on the door, but it happened so fast and it was such an unexpected outburst that I just wasn't fast enough.
On my way out for a couple of hopefully quick errands, will post the next update when I get back. (It's ready to go, I just need to insert the picture links.)
After our quick break we headed up the hill. From here we could look down onto the zebras.
And if you look closely you can see the wolf at the base of the tree:
(His face is nestled into one of the V's of the chain link fence ... )
The bobcat was asleep -
At this point this pathway tuned into a nature trail that went back toward the front of the zoo. We went this route the last time we were here, but I didn't want to today, as it would bypass all the animal exhibits we had to walk past earlier on our way to lunch. So we turned around and went back the way we came. I stopped off at the restrooms on the way, and came out to find Jay playing with my camera.
Don't I look annoyed?!?
Once we got back to the restaurant we took the pathway that led back to the entrance, and spent some time looking at all the animals we missed earlier. First, I noticed the elephants were out:
Then we spent some time watching the meerkats. They were scared because a small plane was flying overhead.
And now we made our way around to the front of the zebra habitat:
But by the time we looked on the other side of the walkway, the elephants had gone back inside again! So we had to go inside to see them. I like how they have this viewing area attached to their barn.
Just outside the elephant barn was the camel ride area. We were being cheap and didn't want to pay for Joshua to ride a camel - I'm not even sure he would have anyway, but we did fork over some change so he could feed the one they had out front:
It surprised me that Joshua wanted to do this! Jay and I gave him a hard time about getting camel slobber all over his hands, but naturally he thought it was no big deal - just sanitized his hands and moved on!
Up next were some bird exhibits.
Behind the bird cages was a special exhibit called Bloomin' Butterflies. We went in, and I tried, but never could get a picture of a butterfly. There weren't very many in there, and the few that were there wouldn't be still long enough for me to take their picture! They had this fish pond which was nice:
The turtle looked like he was stuck on the rock!
Joshua wanted to crawl through the tunnel in the prairie dog exhibit, and I tried to take his picture when he stuck his head up in the bubble, but the plexiglass was too cloudy. So I took a picture of a prairie dog instead!
Across the walkway was the bird aviary. We spotted quite a few birds in here today:
It's hard to make out because this picture is so dark, but there are some ducklings coming down the right-hand side of the bank, and a few more by the food dish:
These owls were in a separate enclosure just outside the aviary:
Hmmm ... I sure did take a lot of pictures at the zoo! Behind the prairie dogs were more bird exhibits:
Jay insisted I take this picture of him and Joshua:
Can you tell what's hiding in there?
It's a ...
Here's a much better view:
The only babies we saw:
I think this was one of the babies, but I can't remember now.
A couple more bird pictures:
This was a cute area, but I'm not sure what it's for other than relaxing - not enough to call it a playground:
It was feeding time for the penguins. Neat to see, but kind of gross, too.
Arriving back at the entrance to the zoo, we got to see the newest exhibit (to us at least), the Red Panda village:
Then Joshua pretended to be one -
Across from the red pandas were the rhinos:
We then continued on to the back of the zoo on another loop trail. There were more bird exhibits along the way.
Joshua's got a bit of growing to do to match the condor's wingspan!
At the back was the otter exhibit. Unfortunately for us they were asleep:
From this point you could look back and down the hill where the Kids Cove is. That was our ultimate destination, to give Joshua some time to play. I know it seems like we stopped and looked at lots of animals, but actually we didn't linger very long at each exhibit. Last time we didn't have time for Joshua to play before we had to get back on the road, so I really wanted him to today.
Here's Joshua at the entrance to the tortoise pens.
The tortoise was too hot for him to sit on today.
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They had this fish pond which was nice:
Last time we didn't have time for Joshua to play before we had to get back on the road, so I really wanted him to today.
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