Living the dream and remembering the Bagman COMPLETED IN THIS FORUM - Page 16 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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What beautiful scenery on your drive and just love those small towns that are just so unique!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
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Wow - now you've made me want to visit Maine! The scenery is just beautiful and I love the colonial feel to the towns. Glad you had such gorgeous weather for driving.
Haven't you been before? I guess I just figured, based on where you live, that you had been....
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Beautiful scenery for sure along your drive! It is curious how the shops survive. But it's like that here too, in the tourist places. Especially Door County (the "thumb" of Wisconsin). During winter, places either just open on the weekends or simply close up for winter and the owners usually have another job during winter.
I don't mean this to come across as it may sound, but I'd never thought of Wisconsin as having a summer season. Now I think about it, of course it must do, but all I ever think about with Wisconsin is the winters - conditioned to think that by a friend of mine who lived there, you see.
I don't mean this to come across as it may sound, but I'd never thought of Wisconsin as having a summer season. Now I think about it, of course it must do, but all I ever think about with Wisconsin is the winters - conditioned to think that by a friend of mine who lived there, you see.
Summer is very short! So we live it up while we can.
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Tanya
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Oh my but your lunch looked amazing!!! And the views. I can't even begin... Thank you for taking us to Maine with you! I love living vicariously through your reports, Cheryl.
Oh my but your lunch looked amazing!!! And the views. I can't even begin... Thank you for taking us to Maine with you! I love living vicariously through your reports, Cheryl.
Your report up the coast was very similar to ours of a few weeks ago (except on a Friday afternoon, traffic through Wiscasset was bumper to bumper). It was lovely to see photos of so many of the scenery we passed.
BUt I expect none of these will compare to views from Acadia and the Bar Harbor area.
And, I can never resist a lobster roll, which can get quite expensive. I actually stopped at the NH rest stop on 93 in Concord/Hooksett and got a very tasty roll. The Common Man Restaurant operates the rest stop food on 93 and it is so nice to have places that offer more than burgers and fries.
I've always thought I'd love to visit Maine, and your beautiful photos definitely say I should. What a cute name for a shop, The Smiling Cow. Do you know what the business was?
Your report up the coast was very similar to ours of a few weeks ago (except on a Friday afternoon, traffic through Wiscasset was bumper to bumper). It was lovely to see photos of so many of the scenery we passed.
Ugh, that doesn't sound like fun.
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BUt I expect none of these will compare to views from Acadia and the Bar Harbor area.
No, they won't. In fairness, we didn't get to Bar Harbor. Part of me now wishes I'd paid a bit more money and stayed the night there, but live and learn. The views in Acadia were just unbelievable.
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And, I can never resist a lobster roll, which can get quite expensive. I actually stopped at the NH rest stop on 93 in Concord/Hooksett and got a very tasty roll. The Common Man Restaurant operates the rest stop food on 93 and it is so nice to have places that offer more than burgers and fries.
Oh wow, that sounds amazing to be able to stop off somewhere like that and get a lobster roll!
I've always thought I'd love to visit Maine, and your beautiful photos definitely say I should. What a cute name for a shop, The Smiling Cow. Do you know what the business was?
I had no clue until I just looked it up on Google. It's apparently a gift shop: https://smilingcow.com/
Oh wow, what a view you got from Mount Battie! The sailing ships were all in the harbour at Camden that we’d passed through just minutes earlier…
You also got some wonderful views of the town itself from up here…
The archipelago of islands reminded me of the approach to Stockholm, although obviously there’s a lot more space between the islands here.
I later found out that the two mountains are actually in Arcadia National Park. They had boards by the Summit House, showing you what everything was, but that was our second stop, so we had no clue what anything was until we got there.
We then made our way over to Summit House, and as I mentioned, suddenly you could understand what it was you were seeing in front of you:
Although there were quite a lot of people there, it was still quite peaceful, with most people talking in relatively low voices, and allowing everyone to enjoy the majesty of the place. There was one kid running around, but his mother told him in no uncertain terms that was not acceptable, as he might run into someone else. Good for her!
Eventually, we headed out, and made our way through more beautiful scenery, passing more lovely towns…
Again, I couldn’t help but wonder how all the businesses, both restaurants and artisan places make a living here. You really must have to ensure that you get enough money through the summer to keep you going throughout the winter, surely? I can’t imagine there are that many visitors here in the winter. It looks stunning now, but give it a couple of months, and I’m sure it’s a lot more inhospitable…
We were amazed by this, which is the Penobscot Narrows Bridge – isn’t it a magnificent feat of engineering?
Despite the lack of fall foliage, way less than further south we still had some beautiful scenery to capture our attention…
Soon we were into the town of Ellsworth, our destination for the night…
Sadly, we weren’t in the historic area, but out in the suburbs, which looked more like this…
We had a real nightmare finding our hotel for the night, the Eagle’s Lodge Motel. It wasn’t where the GPS was putting us, despite us having typed in the address they’d given us. I hate it when that happens. Thank goodness for the phone, as Google Maps was able to place it, and we eventually found it. It didn’t look much from the outside…
… however, I’d read very good reviews about it on TripAdvisor and it was way cheaper than a lot of the other places around here. I just couldn’t justify the prices all the other places were charging, as they didn’t seem to offer much more. I was a little concerned about this, but hopefully the reviews would be right.
We were given the key to our room, and it was certainly large enough…
It did smell a little musty when we entered, but in truth, that disappeared, and after a while, I really didn’t notice it. It turned out to be a great room, in terms of size, but also the bed was very comfortable.
We settled down in the room, both exhausted from our day, and both of us not really sure what we wanted for dinner. There were lots of places to eat around here, but we both agreed that, after our filling lunch, we didn’t feel we were up for a full meal. I suggested going to WalMart, as we’d found the neighbourhood one earlier when we’d been driving around trying to find our motel, so we headed off there.
Wow, what an amazing selection of things they had, and a way better selection of healthy foods than we have at home. Now I never thought I’d say that in my life! I was bowled over with the fruit selections, and the vegetable selections with dips, so that’s what we ended up getting…
We also got some cheese for me and some honey roasted ham for Mark, although he said it tasted more like honey than ham, which was a shame. We also stocked up on drinks, as I’d realised on the drive over, I was getting a bit parched and could do with some water, but we had none, so at least that was done and we got some miniature bottles of wine to enjoy as well. $41 later and we were out of there. Yes, a takeaway meal from somewhere like McDonald’s would’ve been cheaper, but at least our dinner was healthier.
We were also able to enjoy some coverage of the Paralympics, which was really nice, especially as again the events are often at unsociable times at home. I never cease to marvel at these amazing athletes, some of whom have been competing since Atlanta in 1996 or Sydney in 2000. Wow. If only they got as much credit as their Olympic counterparts, but maybe one day that will come..
We eventually crashed not long before 9:00pm. It had been a long day with a lot of driving for Mark, and sadly there was more of the same to come tomorrow…
The weather today was a mixed bag with heavy thunderstorms in the morning, and some humidity earlier on, but fresher later, and sunny and clear for much of the day with temperatures in the mid 70s. The best thing today was seeing Sheila and Mike again. The worst thing today was the awful thunderstorms in the morning. Today we tried Sun and Surf for lunch And the result was the views from there were amazing and the food was pretty good too. The most magical moment today was seeing the view from Mount Battie.
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Now I think about it, of course it must do, but all I ever think about with Wisconsin is the winters - conditioned to think that by a friend of mine who lived there, you see. 
Summer is very short! So we live it up while we can.
we still had some beautiful scenery to capture our attention… 
I was bowled over with the fruit selections, and the vegetable selections with dips, so that’s what we ended up getting…
$41 later and we were out of there. Yes, a takeaway meal from somewhere like McDonald’s would’ve been cheaper, but at least our dinner was healthier. 
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