National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 69 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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 ran out of words long ago in this TR! Just amazing! Thanks so much for sharing this trip with us. You grow up hearing about the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion...and maybe Arches, but even though I had heard of Canyonlands, I had no idea how beautiful it is! The Green River overlook area was also incredible!
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Wow, I never expected Canyonland NP to have such amazing sights! To be honest, for some reason I didn't make the connection that there might be, um, canyons in CANYONland
Don't worry - you're not alone on that... I really didn't make the connection until we got there either...
Loving the Canyonlands pics! We will be staying 2 nights at either Canyonlands or Arches (camping). I had been planning to camp at Arches, just because it looked like that would be where we would focus our time.... but after hearing about the crowds... I'm not sure.... The plan is to camp both nights at one or the other and then just do a "day trip" to the other park..... I'm curious which park you think would be better to spend *more* time in/has more to see..... As I definately want to camp in whichever park we will spend the most time in.....
Hmmmm... that's a real toughie, as we didn't do Canyonlands justice in a couple of hours at all. There is another entrance to it that I think is a couple of hours' drive away and there's no way of getting from one side of the park, so I'm tempted to say do that, have one day at one end of the park, then spend the next in the other side. However, I can also see how you could easily spend more time in Arches. I think both have a heck of a lot to see and I think it's a tough choice....
After having seen the Grand Canyon last summer, Canyonlands sure gives it a run for the money! It is just as amazing. I imagine the colors change daily depending on the weather. Must be fun to paint!
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Thursday 15 September – part eight: the jewel in Canyonland’s crown
Our next destination was the Grand View Point Overlook, which was meant to be the jewel in Canyonland’s crown. Well, it would have a long way to go to beat what we’d already seen....
My goodness, this was special. It was like the world was laid out in front of us and it had been pulled apart many years ago by nature, leaving scars on the landscape that looked just like a footprint. It was really like seeing the Grand Canyon, yet I’ve never heard anyone mention Canyonlands, before today. We were in Arches and we heard a couple raving about how amazing it was, but it really does seem to be a forgotten gem. Although there were a lot of people here, maybe 20 or 30, at our first stop, there’d only been about 10 of us. No fighting to find parking spaces here!
Eventually, we tore ourselves away from this glorious sight and headed back to the car. We needed to hustle a bit now, as the visitor centre closed at 6:00pm. We hadn’t expected to be here that long and had said that we’d stop there on the way out. As a result, we made a short stop at the Buck Canyon overlook and probably the length of time we spent there didn’t really do the view justice. It was just, yet again, amazing. This really had been the unexpected find of our trip.
Mark hurtled towards the visitor centre as fast as he could and we were in plenty of time, so much so that I was able to get a couple more shots of Shafer Canyon.
We headed into the visitor centre.
I got my passport stamped and then headed outside to use the restrooms. They really weren’t the best, it was literally a hole in the ground, but at least it didn’t stink as much as those did in Yellowstone and my bladder was not going to wait any longer : so I sucked it up. It could’ve been worse... but it wasn’t great!
Oh, my!! What amazing views! I wonder why this park doesn't get more attention, as it looks well worth a visit. The terrain is spectacular and the canyons seem to stretch as far as the eye can see.
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Oh, my!! What amazing views! I wonder why this park doesn't get more attention, as it looks well worth a visit. The terrain is spectacular and the canyons seem to stretch as far as the eye can see.
I think the problem is it's surrounded by parks that are much better known, so Canyonlands gets forgotten about. Great for those who do visit though, as the crowd levels are great.
I think the problem is it's surrounded by parks that are much better known, so Canyonlands gets forgotten about.
I'm so glad you decided to go there so I could see all your beautiful pictures Now Canyonlands is definitely on our itinerary whenever we make it out to the western part of the U.S. again
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OK - add Canyonlands to our list. I had heard about the park and its creation in Ken Burn's National Park Series for PBS... you should really watch that.
Oooh, Shafer Canyon looked beautiful! Really, they all do though! Glad you didn't have crowds to contend with.
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There is another entrance to it that I think is a couple of hours' drive away and there's no way of getting from one side of the park, so I'm tempted to say do that, have one day at one end of the park, then spend the next in the other side. However, I can also see how you could easily spend more time in Arches. I think both have a heck of a lot to see and I think it's a tough choice.... 
I imagine the colors change daily depending on the weather. Must be fun to paint!
Great for those who do visit though, as the crowd levels are great. 
Now Canyonlands is definitely on our itinerary whenever we make it out to the western part of the U.S. again 
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