National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 21 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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've been following along w/out commenting as I always seem to be pages behind... but I'm finally caught up.... and just- Wow! Amazing pictures and I'm just loving this TR.... looking forward to more...
Friday 9 September – part seven: I think I can wait to use the restrooms
Literally, only a couple of hundred yards down the road we stopped in the parking area for the Sulphur Cauldron and the smell hit you almost instantly. I will be honest, I can’t look at these photos without remembering the smell, but as Mark commented, your nose does quickly get used to it. However, it left us gasping for water even more. It was just an amazing sight – sorry, am I saying that a lot in today’s instalment?
A little bit further down the road, we stopped again for the mud volcano, which was fascinating to watch. I loved the Dragon’s Mouth and I could see how it had got its name. I could just imagine someone in the past watching it and thinking that it looked just like a dragon breathing out smoke all the time. Once again, the smell in this area was quite something.
Mark noticed that there were restrooms here, but let’s just say I opened the door and closed it again, as it was exceptionally basic and suddenly my urge to go wasn’t that strong after all...
We hit the road again:
We carried on along the road and made it to the Lake Yellowstone Hotel and Cabins, which weren’t really our cup of tea at all. They just didn’t look as if they fitted in, the way that the Mammoth Hot Spring Hotel and Cabins had. However, they had very nice restrooms, so it was a worthwhile stop.
We found our way next to the General Stores, as Mark was almost out of discs for the video camera, so we asked and sure enough, they had some in there. This place also had an interesting history to it, as you can see.
Outside, we could see the fire that we’d spotted from some distance earlier and it appeared to be on the other side of Yellowstone Lake. We asked the woman in the store about it and she told us that it’s now been raging for three weeks and resulted from a lightning strike. They’ve decided to let it burn itself out naturally and will only take action if it starts to affect the road.
Okay, first things first (since my guests have now all left and my house is now Christmas-free):
Happy belated birthday and Merry belated Christmas!!
I am looking at your pictures, and find it incredibly difficult to believe that this is all so close to me, yet I've never been there yet! Perhaps a summer trip is in order! I'm glad you had a great trip and saw some incredible things.
(BTW, not as a spoiler, but just in case I forget, some friends ate at the same restaurant this weekend that we did when you were here, and guess who was there????)
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Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
This place also had an interesting history to it, as you can see. 
Tricia
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