National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 75 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 thought when you said Mark found a piano, that you were also going to say he decided to go play it.
If anything, that would be me, as technically I own a piano. I say technically, as it was grandmother's and she left it to me, as the only one who ever showed any interest in playing it (I had to stop though, as my fingers are so small, they can't stretch an octave ). It's resided at my parents' ever since she left it and I can't ever see us having anywhere to put it in our house, so I guess one day it will no doubt be sold....
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Great pics! I had a friend recently return from a trip to Paris and I've really been dying to go since all the great things she has told me about her trip; not to mention the beautiful pics..... Don't think I'll be going any time soon though.... Have a great trip! I'd love to see a few pics from your *day trip*...
Don't worry, there will be a report and pics, but it'll take me a while to write it up, as it's all in shorthand right now! We didn't go to Paris and never had any plans to, as we've been there a fair few times. Instead, I won't give too much away, but I will say that we had a lovely time, visited some fascinating and beautiful places and it's something we'll have to do again, it was so much fun!
Friday 16 September – part four: this is a real treat!
When we made it to City Park, we were in for a real treat – this was the entrance... and the geese are using a pedestrian crossing!
We turned a corner and found the Martin Luther King memorial, which is one of the coolest I’ve ever found. I had got out to get some photos and thought Mark should come and join me, but : he was staring the other way, despite me waving at him. Even a passing driver spotted what was going on and tried to get his attention, but no joy. I ended up having to walk back to the car and pound on the window, which startled him.
He got out and we both listened to the audio that they have here, explaining all about the memorial and the people represented on it. As you can see, there’s much more than just Martin Luther represented here.
We then wandered around the memorial. There were four corners, all with general history on one side and then Martin Luther’s quotes on the other sides.
In the centre was the main tribute to him and the others being honoured.
As I say, very neat and we were very impressed with it. We got back in the car and made a few stops around the park:
Then we headed for the boating lake, where we got out and got some photos.
We stopped again at the entrance to get some better shots:
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Love the flying squirrel shot! My parents lived in Denver for many years. It is a beautiful city. Wonder if you found the Tattered Cover Bookstore? One of the best I've ever seen.
Enjoy the day trip!
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Love the flying squirrel shot! My parents lived in Denver for many years. It is a beautiful city. Wonder if you found the Tattered Cover Bookstore? One of the best I've ever seen.
Enjoy the day trip!
I wish I could just say, I won't be here tomorrow I'm going to France for the day. LOL
Ah the joys of living in the south east of England! And we didn't just stop at France... you'll have to read that trip report (first installment going up shortly) to find out more....
Friday 16 September – part five: this is cutting it too close!
Now it was time to head to the airport. We saw some more beautiful buildings just after we left the park...
Mark suggested getting some gas just after we left, but I knew it was 20 miles or so to the airport and, when we’d taken the car back in Seattle, they’d asked us how far away we’d filled up, so I suggested waiting until we were a bit closer. I checked Son of Tim and he confidently told me that there was one just by the airport, right on our route. Great, that works! Off we went...
A touch of Disney in one of the signs we saw!
As we got nearer to the airport, you could see what a great big place it was, but sensibly, it’s been put completely in the middle of nowhere. This is one of the advantages of having lots of nothing-ness out here. We don’t have the luxury of space and end up with airports surrounded by houses. This was the perfect location.
However, it wasn’t the perfect location for Son of Tim’s gas station. He very proudly announced it as we went along a road with no sign of one. This was not what we needed to hear. : Time was starting to be against us and the car had only about 40 miles left in it. I found another one, about two miles away, but when we got there, disaster. It was natural gas only.
Fortunately, just as Mark was about to do something very unpleasant to Son of Tim, who I was trying to re-programme, a guy asked if we were OK and Mark asked if there was a gas station anywhere nearby. He gave us directions to the only one (his words) just down the road and we found it easily enough. Wouldn’t you know it? Not on the GPS at all...
Almost running on empty, we pre-paid $70 to fill it up and fortunately got in quickly. Being the only gas station in the area meant that it was packed in here, with loads of cars lining up. I bet they make a killing here from the car rental companies, as they’re all off airport and located here.
We found Avis easily enough and emptied out the car, relieved that we’d done most of the work first thing and disposing of what we’d eaten and drunk in the trash cans. Our car was checked back in, with the woman looking a little surprised to see Montana plates. We’d done more than 2,000 miles in eight days. In the end, this car had been a godsend for getting all of our stuff into it and I’d enjoyed it. It had features that we found as time wore on and we never did work out the Sirius radio (the display didn’t seem to work in daylight ), but that was fine, as we had a ready supply of music on the iPod.
We got on the bus, with the driver helping us with our luggage, and headed for the terminal. I think it’s fair to say that we were both pretty frazzled by now, probably me less so than Mark. We were way later for our flight than we wanted to be. It was due to depart at 4:15pm and it was now 2:50pm. This was cutting it far too close in our eyes.
It didn’t help that we went to the west terminal first and we were east terminal and of course we were the final stops – figures, right?
We used the skycap service, as there were only three people in line in front of us, although the time waiting, which couldn’t have been more than about five minutes, did seem to crawl by.
Our luggage safely dispatched, we headed inside and to security. I have to admit that the line, at first, looked exceptionally daunting, but as we entered it, it started to move very quickly and we were through in probably 10-15 minutes in total. I will say that the TSA staff we came across here were exceptionally friendly and probably the nicest bunch we’ve come across in all our travels around the States, which was really nice and helped the process. One even apologised to me for the wait – that’s definitely the first time that’s ever happened!
We headed downstairs and to the light rail service that takes you out to your gates.
There are three sets of gates, A, B and C and the train visits them in that order. Can you guess which set we were at?
We made it there and found gate C31 and had probably about 45 minutes to spare. To be honest, I’d have been a lot more stressed had it been any other airline, other than Southwest, as I know they have their boarding process down to pat and it usually starts pretty late.
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). It's resided at my parents' ever since she left it and I can't ever see us having anywhere to put it in our house, so I guess one day it will no doubt be sold....
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: he was staring the other way, despite me waving at him. Even a passing driver spotted what was going on and tried to get his attention, but no joy. 
I ended up having to walk back to the car and pound on the window, which startled him. 
And we didn't just stop at France... you'll have to read that trip report (first installment going up shortly) to find out more....
He very proudly announced it as we went along a road with no sign of one. This was not what we needed to hear. 
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