National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 17 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 can't resist a tie-in with Disney at this point. It's amazing what the Imagineers create to look like nature, but it's just mind boggling that nature creates something so incredibly beautiful! I can't imagine what it must have looked like in person. You're really convincing me to try to plan a trip there sooner rather than later!
I hear you! It is just mind boggling what nature comes up - and I'm willing to bet if a Disney Imagineer came up with something like that, everyone would say "you're crazy"!
The cabin looked lovely, and you can tell that park was active as so many cars at the resort. Love the pictures of the Hot Springs...some amazing beauty.
Those pictures are just STUNNING!!! That area is just to beautiful for words. I would be in such awe. Great score on the cabin and hot tub. I used to have a boyfriend who had a hot tub and we would go out in the middle of winter on his back porch and sit in it. It was so cool to see snow falling around you and being toasty warm. Thats probably the only thing I miss about him.
Oh wow, that is one cool cabin!!! I absolutely love hot tubs. When I lived in Wisconsin, a friend of mine had one on her patio (in the backyard). During the winter, we'd go into the hot tub while it was snowing. So relaxing! I don't think I've ever slept so well in my life.
The cabin looked lovely, and you can tell that park was active as so many cars at the resort. Love the pictures of the Hot Springs...some amazing beauty.
You're right - it was quite busy. We heard a couple of people during our visit comment that they regularly visit during September and Yellowstone has got more and more busy over the years they've been coming during that time of year.
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Those pictures are just STUNNING!!! That area is just to beautiful for words. I would be in such awe. Great score on the cabin and hot tub. I used to have a boyfriend who had a hot tub and we would go out in the middle of winter on his back porch and sit in it. It was so cool to see snow falling around you and being toasty warm. Thats probably the only thing I miss about him.
Oh wow, that is one cool cabin!!! I absolutely love hot tubs. When I lived in Wisconsin, a friend of mine had one on her patio (in the backyard). During the winter, we'd go into the hot tub while it was snowing. So relaxing! I don't think I've ever slept so well in my life.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Friday 9 September – part two: I cannot believe he’s sitting this close to the road!
We drove a little further up to get a photo at the lookout point....
... then it was off to the Albright Visitor Centre. I got my National Parks passport stamped and we got a book and scrapbooking kit ( they are everywhere this trip! ) and had a browse around. There were a variety of native animals, all in stuffed form, for you to get an idea of what you might see.
From there, we headed off towards Tower-Roosevelt,
On the way, we took the Blacktail Plateau Drive. At first, I didn’t think much of the sights and it was pretty off road and bumpy, but as we drove further on, so the sights improved...
... until we came to the most amazing sight of all:
Seriously, he was just sitting by the roadside, posing for photos. It was just unbelievable.
On the way around the park, we saw lots of dead trees, we assumed some of them from natural causes, while others had obviously been destroyed in the various fires that have blighted the parks over the years. We would see evidence of a more current one shortly....
You're really in the right place at the right time on this trip... great weather, and the native wildlife greeting you along the way. Seems like an odd spot for him to settle for a rest. He must have known you were coming!
The buffalo are truely an awesome sight to see. We saw 2, both sitting close to the road. Has there been more fires in Yellowstone? I had thought that most of the fire evidence was from the fire in 1988.
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It is just mind boggling what nature comes up - and I'm willing to bet if a Disney Imagineer came up with something like that, everyone would say "you're crazy"! 
that cabin. We stayed in one of the cabins farther out. And while it wasn't exactly rustic, we didn't have a bathroom attached, let alone a hot tub!
More pics coming up shortly.... 
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