Me, Muffin and Our Adventures in the West!! - Page 23 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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'm sorry to hear about Adrienne's prognosis. As others have said, having you there must be a comfort to her. Continued prayers.
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Originally Posted by Pris
I am so terribly sorry about Adrienne's diagnosis. I know it is completely devastating for all of you. Sending loads of and prayers to help you all as you travel this journey with her.
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Originally Posted by SuperDave
Just so sorry to hear the prognosis on Adrienne as hoping things would improve but sadly they aren't and sounds like they never will and just get worse!
You have my support and I will continue to pray for your amazing friend as well as for her and her family!
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Amazing pictures of the hot springs! I didn't know there was a place near where you could go swimming, how cool. We decided to join my father next summer on his annual trek out west and we'll definitely be going back to Yellowstone.
Thanks, Lisa!! We already want to go back there!!
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Originally Posted by SuperDave
More amazing photos from Yellowstone and just incredible scenery with the various hot spring and geysers. I really enjoyed the Paint Pot and the descriptions. Sounds like a good meal at the Holiday Inn. Some more nice wins at the casino as the two of yours luck continues!
Thanks, Dave!! Yellowstone is truly one of the most beautiful places on earth!! The Holiday Inn was so fun!!
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Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Beautiful pictures of Yellowstone! You guys just have all the luck at the casino!
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Oh my goodness! I've been on the boards a couple of times but hadn't read this TR. I as so sorry to about Adrienne. Lots of positive thoughts for her and everyone who is close to her. This is such devastating news.
And I also want to thank you for sharing with us this very painful news. I've been dealing with a couple of cervical problems for the past couple of years, abnormalities that keep popping up in my tests and I've had to have 2 procedures and monitoring every 6 months. I was supposed to go for a follow up test in June, which I didn't do. After reading your post, I promptly called my ob-gyn's office and made an appointment for Monday. So, thank you again because this was like a wake up call for me.
Today would be a looooong day of driving for us!! We left our hotel at 8:00 AM for our trek back to Salt Lake City. We again this morning just got up, showered, packed up and got on the road.
Our first stop along the way was for breakfast at around 9:30 AM at Mickey D’s. I had a sausage Mcmuffin with egg and A tall Caramel frappe and Muffin had pancakes and orange juice. We were cracking up because he ordered a large o.j. not realizing just how large it would be!! . Needless to say he finished just over half of it!
My moving photos are a bit blurry and I apologize but I still wanted you guys to see how pretty the drive was:
With our tummies full, we got back on the road and drove for another hour before pulling off in Idaho to go to the Shoshone Hotel Casino. We had our extra cash from last night and when all was said and done, we came out three hours later with 65 bucks more than we went in with and had a ball in the process!!
We were back on route 15 at around 1:30 PM and we would not stop again before hitting Salt Lake City. I took some photos on the way but there wasn’t anything really exciting to see.
We wanted to see the Tabernacle and my goodness we were so glad we stopped here. Neither Muffin nor myself are very religious people but we both love history and learning about how things came to be.
This was a delightful history of the Mormon religion and filled in a lot of blanks for us with what we already knew or thought we did. My goodness the Temple Square is quite a complex. We honestly thought we would see the church from the outside, take some pictures and leave but the case was anything but that!
There is both a North and South visitor center, a library, a conference center, a small cathedral, the church of course and a Joseph Smith memorial center which was a huge building!! The grounds are gorgeous and the guides are very welcoming to all visitors, although I think at one point they tried to get a little aggressive with Muffin.
These two girls talked to Muffin for a bit. I think they tried to convert him. They asked him what brought him here today and he said that we were just staying in the area and were interested in the history of Salt Lake City. As soon as he said that, they moved on.
This was a delightful stop and we are so glad we took the time to see it.
By this time, it was around 5 PM and we realized that we were super hungry and super tired. We made one more short stop to view the capitol building:
Then we made our way to the Holiday Inn at the airport, stopping for gas to fill our rental car. A few words about that. A Ford Expedition is a humongous car, at least for me and I am so grateful that Muffin did all the driving. That being said, it was the perfect car to travel in to explore. It held all of our luggage, rode smoothly no matter what the terrain and was as comfortable as a waterbed! We both loved it as a rental!!
We arrived at our hotel and we could not believe how nice this was for a Holiday Inn. The receptionist told us it was pretty new and to expect to see more like this popping up.
We loved the photos in our room:
We also loved the cool mirrors by the elevators:
After checking in and dropping our bags, we went downstairs to Wing Tips Bar and Bistro.This was a beautiful little restaurant and everyone was so nice!! We were seated in a booth right away and given water and our waitress took our drink order. She brought back a local IPA for me and a Maker’s Mark for Muffin and then took our dinner order. We ordered a hummus and pita platter from the appetizer menu to share and then we each ordered the Citrus Salmon for dinner. All was delicious and we agreed the salmon was just as good as any we’ve had at other places.
Sorry this is blurry
After our meal, we headed upstairs and just vegged out. We watched mindless TV, checked some facts we had learned while at the Parks, caught up with our email and uploaded some photos. Then we watched one of the Thor movies and we both fell asleep before the end!!
Sounds like another great day. I loved seeing the pictures from your Holiday Inn room. They are very familiar to me as I grew up in Memphis. You may know that Kemmons Wilson opened his first HI there. I drove past it on more than one occasion. As a matter of fact, my daughter got a Hospitality and Resort Management degree from the Kemmons Wilson School of Hospitality at the University of Memphis.
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The tabernacle looks similar to the one here in the DC area. You can see it from the beltway and when she was little, Kelsey always referred to it as The Castle.
That looked like a nice little restaurant! I wouldn’t have expected that in a Holiday Inn.
Great day, and wonderful pictures from the Tabernacle.
It was a terrific day and thank you!!
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Originally Posted by Pris
Sounds like another great day. I loved seeing the pictures from your Holiday Inn room. They are very familiar to me as I grew up in Memphis. You may know that Kemmons Wilson opened his first HI there. I drove past it on more than one occasion. As a matter of fact, my daughter got a Hospitality and Resort Management degree from the Kemmons Wilson School of Hospitality at the University of Memphis.
Awww! What cool memories!! We love nostalgia and those pictures were awesome!!
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Originally Posted by DMA
What a great day! The Tabernacle sounds like an interesting place.
It was very interesting!!
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Originally Posted by cubfancolleen
The tabernacle looks similar to the one here in the DC area. You can see it from the beltway and when she was little, Kelsey always referred to it as The Castle.
That looked like a nice little restaurant! I wouldn’t have expected that in a Holiday Inn.
It is similar but larger. I think those three spires are a trademark. The restaurant was adorable and the food very good!!
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