Westward Ho! A month-long adventure! - Page 4 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 a nightmare about that campground - I'm so glad you were able to find another one so easily. It sounds like you had a lucky escape there. I loved the frontier village and you're right, the national park looked absolutely stunning.
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Just got caught up with this TR. You are amazing to take off for the wilderness and to camp to boot! Sounds like you did a lot of planning and except for that one scary campground it has worked out. Please return with more of the story.
What a great report so far!! As soon as I saw your first post, I knew you were in town the day the bridge collapsed. That was not a good day around here.
And FYI, I know for sure that the first picture below is the Basilica of St. Mary (beautiful!), and I should know what the next one is, but I can't quite place it. It might be Westminster Presbyterian Church, which is on Nicollet Mall and 12th, I think?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Meggera
There were some beautiful buildings. Unfortunately, since I don’t know the area, I don’t know what they are.
I am so sorry I have been away. I have had some serious virus issues with my computer. I was able to do some things on the laptop, but all of my trip pictures had been moved to my desktop. I hope to be back tomorrow to complete what I started!!!
Thank you so much for all of your nice comments so far. I really appreciate it!!
What a great report so far!! As soon as I saw your first post, I knew you were in town the day the bridge collapsed. That was not a good day around here.
And FYI, I know for sure that the first picture below is the Basilica of St. Mary (beautiful!), and I should know what the next one is, but I can't quite place it. It might be Westminster Presbyterian Church, which is on Nicollet Mall and 12th, I think?
1. Yes, the day the bridge collapsed was dreadful! I told my friends back home that it truly had the feel of 9/11 in Minnesota. It was very sad.
2. Thanks for IDing the pics. Yes, I know I was on Nicollet. I'm not sure about 12th. But, I bet you are right about the Presbyterian Church.
Victoria and I woke up around 7:30 a.m., I believe. I failed to mention in my last post about fellow campers that were in the KOA. Every August, there is a huge bike rally in Sturgis, SD. We saw a ton of bikers along the roads during our trip. They were all headed to Sturgis, I suppose. Anyway, there were a lot of bikers at the KOA. Quiet hours at the camp were from 10 p.m. – 7 a.m. The bikers started revving their engines and riding around the camp around 9:00 p.m. I was so exhausted so it upset me that they were being so inconsiderate. But, I knew that quiet hours were coming. At five minutes until 10 p.m., I called the front desk (since they go home at 10) and asked if they thought the motorcycle noise would stop at 10. They said they would send someone out to remind them. Sure enough, the noise ended at 10 p.m. Phew! Unfortunately, they started back up around 10:15 p.m. I wanted to cry, simply because I was past the point of exhaustion and knew I had to drive the next day as well. Mercifully, they quit making all of the noise around 10:30. But, it wasn’t a way to earn any friends around the campground.
Anyhoo, off we went. We went backwards a few miles on I94 to visit the Pictograph Cave State Park.
These caves show there was habitation there about 4500 years ago and have actual cave drawings preserved inside. There are three caves to see. I thought it would be like spelunking, but I was wrong. The caves were open and not very deep. You didn’t have to walk through any tunnels to see anything. I was a little disappointed because I am an avid fan of spelunking, but it was still worth the trip to see.
We began our hike up to the first cave. This is the view of the third cave from the trail. Nice!
There were little bunnies all over the place. Here is one we met along the way. They didn’t seem to be afraid of humans at all.
Not the ideal sign to come across when you are hiking along a very narrow path with nowhere to run to in case you run into one of the rattlers somewhere. Of course, Victoria’s angst was fabricated.
This is the view of the first cave, which is known as the main cave, from our trail.
And, when you turn around to see where you have come from, this beautiful rimline to the south is in view.
Once we got to the top of the first cave, there was a “key” to look at to determine what the cave walls were saying to us. The pictures in red are the ones that can actually be seen on the walls.
These drawings were the most vivid in the cave. What you see here are a bunch of guns (they are red) and lots of little people. Underneath is a trail of buffaloes (they are in black). How sad! This is the best picture I got of the pictographs. Some were extremely faint.
Here is Victoria in the main cave.
We made our way to the second cave after looking at the drawings in the main cave. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get very close as there had been an avalanche and the path was now covered in huge boulders. So, we took the detour path, and I was able to get this shot of cave number two from the detour.
The views from the top were just gorgeous. This view is as we were approaching the third cave aka Ghost Cave. You can see the tiny path we ventured on.
This is a shot looking back towards the parking lot and picnic area. Beautiful!
We reached the Ghost Cave. It was lovely. You could see where small avalanches had occurred over the years.
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Sorry about the campground 
Lisa 
about the campground.....good thing DH was able to find something else for you!!
That was not a good day around here.
There are three caves to see. I thought it would be like spelunking, but I was wrong. 
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