National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 20 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Everything continues to be gorgeous! I really like that a lot of the signs give you an idea of what kind of terrain and distance you should expect when exploring different areas. That would be a great help for me when I travel with my kids...if they're getting cranky, I'll know not to try some of the more difficult treks.
I have a question? How were the distances between the different places you stopped? Would it be a lot of time backtracking if I had to skip something here and there and then go back another day? I'm trying to follow along with your descriptions and the maps to see if I can attempt this with my kids in the upcoming year. I just have to have a flexible schedule with them.
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2013 WDW trip here!
2011 trip to Hawaii here!
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You're not the only one running out of words! Beautiful will have to do.
I thought of you yesterday as I was watching a show in the "Nature" series called "Christmas in Yellowstone". Wonderful documentary and it covered a lot of the areas you went to.... only covered in snow.
That sounds like a great show. We had one over here, showcasing Yellowstone in the winter - I wonder if it was the same one... They had a guy employed to shovel snow off the roads of the buildings. If he didn't, they may collapse.
I have a question? How were the distances between the different places you stopped? Would it be a lot of time backtracking if I had to skip something here and there and then go back another day? I'm trying to follow along with your descriptions and the maps to see if I can attempt this with my kids in the upcoming year. I just have to have a flexible schedule with them.
Friday 9 September – part six: they are getting very close to the car!
We stopped a little further up, after seeing lots of people out with exceptionally long camera lenses. Obviously SOMETHING was out there – but what? We stood and listened to one guy talking for a while and realised it was wolves he was talking about, but no matter how hard we looked, we could not see a thing. :
However, it really didn’t matter, as we were about to stumble on our own amazing animal encounter. I saw the dust, but didn’t know what it was, until Mark yelled that the bison were rutting and they were. It was just an awe inspiring sight, although I did tell him to start moving, when two of them started to get very close to our car. I’m sticking to that minimum 25 yard rule of keeping away from all animals (except bears – that’s 100 yards), you don’t need to worry about that! :
We didn’t get very far though, as we had a traffic jam just a couple of minutes later, with bison crossing the road. I loved the way he looked at us, as if to say “and what are YOU doing here?” and I guess, in fairness, he had a point, as they have been here much longer than we have...
We got a bit further along and came along more bison causing the most almighty traffic jam, although fortunately the lines were going the opposite way to us. We watched as what appeared to be a mother and child crossed, followed by daddy – and my goodness, he was a huge, hulking size! He pretty much dwarfed the car and the others in the herd obviously knew he was the boss. They were all standing in the middle of the road, causing chaos, but when he arrived, he quickly got them moving again. I honestly never thought we’d get to see wildlife up this close and personal. It was just unbelievable.
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Fantastic bison pics! What are the speed limits within the park? I can imagine some really horrific animal encounters if you were sailing along and that daddy bison stepped out into the road! When I lived in Maine I'd occasionally see moose crossing the road and collisions with moose and deer were not uncommon.
Those crazy bison. Yep, I still remember that traffic jam from all those years ago - and it's just like the one you experienced! Now that's one bit of traffic I don't mind getting stuck in!
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Fantastic bison pics! What are the speed limits within the park? I can imagine some really horrific animal encounters if you were sailing along and that daddy bison stepped out into the road! When I lived in Maine I'd occasionally see moose crossing the road and collisions with moose and deer were not uncommon.
I honestly don't remember - 30, 40mph maybe? There is something you'll see when we cross into the Grand Tetons, which shows the number of wildlife killed by cars each year - that was scary.
Those crazy bison. Yep, I still remember that traffic jam from all those years ago - and it's just like the one you experienced! Now that's one bit of traffic I don't mind getting stuck in!
Well, at least you can see the cause and it's fun to watch nature like that in front of you....
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They had a guy employed to shovel snow off the roads of the buildings. If he didn't, they may collapse. 
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