On the road (3) A (hopefully) sunny September road trip to Spain COMPLETED - Page 47 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I wanted to see the Chapelle Notre-Dame, which is home to the Black Virgin and Child. This is believed to have miraculous powers, after an account from 1172 described an amazing total of 126 miracles that the statue was supposed to have performed. Pretty impressive!
That done, we started the descent down the steps, getting photos just to prove that we had done it.
We were then back on the main street and very glad that we had descended the stairs, rather than going upwards. Definitely a good decision...
Next: Limousin country – you know what that means, right?
What great photos! Interesting that you decided to take the stairs down instead of up. It actually requires more muscles to go down staircases, than up. (The control required to keep from falling forward.) Thanks for the photo of the Black Madonna! Its one of those bucket list items if you are a religion geek. (I have a BA in history and comparative religion, although I'm not religious at all)
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This town is so beautiful! Maybe that witchy waitress should take a trip to that cathedral and have a miracle worked on her to become a nicer person! BTW...I would have loved that elevator ride.
What great photos! Interesting that you decided to take the stairs down instead of up. It actually requires more muscles to go down staircases, than up. (The control required to keep from falling forward.) Thanks for the photo of the Black Madonna! Its one of those bucket list items if you are a religion geek. (I have a BA in history and comparative religion, although I'm not religious at all)
Oh wow, I never knew that about it taking more muscles to go down stairs - Ok, so you feel less tired if you go down!
And I never knew you had a BA in that - you learn something new every day!
Saturday 18 September – part three: Limousin country – you know what that means, right?
We retrieved the rest of our luggage from the room and headed for the car. Once loaded up, we were off, stopping at the top of the hill for some final views back over Rocamadour.
Then we were off, fortunately not twisting and turning this time, thank goodness. I don’t think Mark would’ve stood much more of that. : We did see some lovely villages on the way to the toll road.
Once we joined the toll road, it soon became apparent that the scenery would be a little few and far between, as there were so many trees planted on either side.
However, an hour or so into the drive on the toll road and suddenly we were in Limousin country – and we all know what that means, right? Anyone who said posh cars would be wrong. : It’s known for cows of course! Now would it live up to its reputation? it would – there were cow sightings left, right and centre and this turned out to be the best cow spotting day of the entire vacation, by miles, as these photos and statistics show:
The closest we came to actually seeing any
So what was the final count? It’s impressive:
13 x moo
9 x moos
24 x mooey
24 x mooey mooey
12 x mooey mooey mooey
All the cow spotting certainly kept us entertained, during what would have been an otherwise very dull drive.
As for British number plates, we had a field day with those as well, getting 55 in total today, a big improvement on yesterday’s 21 and the 24 we spotted the day before and even above the amazing 50 we got on Moraira market day. In between photographing duties and noting all of these stats down, it got quite hectic!
About two hours into the journey, the car needed fuel – no surprise, as we’d done a lot of driving since the Spanish border, so we stopped to fill up, although it cost us a whopping €66 ($86), the prices they charge on French toll roads is appalling!
I took the opportunity to use the restrooms, although there was a huge line for them, but I got there in the end. They weren’t great, but then again, no charge – perhaps they’ve stopped doing that now over here?
When I came out, I suggested to Mark that we get something to eat for lunch to go with our various snacks. Mark went for a tuna, ham, tomato and egg baguette, while I went for the smoked salmon and cheese sandwich. I was quite surprised by the selection they had and how nice all the flavours sounded.
We drove for another hour, before I started to drop some none-too-subtle hints to Mark that perhaps we should stop for lunch, so we found a rest area and ate and both of us really liked our choices.
Finally caught up! Great updates and pictures. Too bad about the grumpy breakfast... but, I guess, when you live with Grumpy, you can get through it easy enough! hehehe