TCD is Thankful for Thanksgiving at the Fort Trip Report

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

I don't want to just say it, I want to do it!!!

doing it is much much, much better than saying it....

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Where is TCD? It's almost 11am Florida time and no update.....

TCD? YooHoooo!

Maybe he is doing the hibity dibity.

You just wanted to say hibity dibity. :rofl2:

Thanks for the concern, all.

I am fine.

My computer got temporarily hibity-dibitied by some kind of malware.

I think it's working now.

But, because it was down, I have some other matters to attend to. So (gasp) there may not be an update today.

Don't worry, I'll make it up to you all somehow.

TCD

[Roller ... aka Ed 351]

My computer got temporarily hibity-dibitied by some kind of malware.

TCD

Maybe the bushes it used to hibity-dibity were Poison Oak ...

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

Thanks for the concern, all.

I am fine.

My computer got temporarily hibity-dibitied by some kind of malware.

I think it's working now.

But, because it was down, I have some other matters to attend to. So (gasp) there may not be an update today.

Don't worry, I'll make it up to you all somehow.

TCD

sorry to hear about the unfortunate malware hibity dibity to your computer :rofl2: (that's just funny)... I guess we'll just have to endure the update silence.....

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

Maybe the bushes it used to hibity-dibity were Poison Oak ...

or had thorns....

[blm2003 2]

or had thorns....

Ouch! :bugeyes:

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

OK- I'm back.

I hope.

That malware came back already. I think it's gone now, but we will see.

Picking up where we left off, Wednesday passed by quickly.

Time flies at the Fort.

When our Wednesday began, the plan at the time was that we would be packing up and heading home that day.

My oldest DD was supposed to have driven home from Tallahassee on Tuesday night, and Mrs. TCD wanted Wednesday night to be family time at home.

But fate intervened.

My oldest DD had too much to do, and decided to not head home until Wednesday night.

So, Mrs. TCD and I agreed that we could just stay at the Fort, and meet up on Thanksgiving.

So, we got to stay.

We were all happy about that.

So far on this trip, we had visited the Magic Kngdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios.

But not Disney's Animal Kingdom.

So it was obvious that we needed to head over there today.

I had an invitation to drink some Russian beer with DaveInTn at his site beginning at 5, so I decided that we needed to drive ourselves to AK to avoid any bus delays.

We headed out of the Fort in the late afternoon.

As is often the case, we saw something interesting along the way.

It was this Sea World Beetle:

Pretty cool.

I wonder what it is used for?

And why it was on Disney property?

Here is a shot of most of the AK Christmas tree:

Sorry about cutting the top off, that is one tall tree!

Since we were arriving late in the day at AK, we knew our options for attractions would be limited. There was a Nemo show starting in about 45 minutes after our arrival, so we headed over there. That was a good choice, we got in with no problem, and even got good seats. It has been a while since we have seen this show. I think we saw it too many times when it first began, and got tired of it. But, we really enjoyed it this time.

Here is a photo of Nemo and Marlin:

You can see that the actor playing Marlin has very distinctive glasses on. We all discussed this after the show, because it seems like every time we have seen the show, the actor playing Marlin had the same kind of glasses. Does anybody know if this is part of his costume, or is it possible that we have always seen the same actor playing that role?

Here's one more photo from Nemo. As you can see, this is a big production with elaborate costumes. it is very well done:

That is Mr. Ray there- as you can see, the actor who plays him rides around on a bike.

The actor who played Nemo was a female, which seems to be the case every time we have seen the show. We all recognized her as the same young lady on the video for the pre-show in the new Sum of All Thrills attraction over at Epcot. At least we think that she is the same actor.

While we were at AK, we decided to try Dinosaur. We have never had to wait long for that ride, and that was the case again today.

I don't think twin #1 has ever actually seen the big Dinosaur at the end of the ride. Every photo that we take on this ride ends up looking something like this:

Since nobody handed us free Fastpasses when we entered the park, we debated what to do next.

There was It's Tough to Be a Bug, which usually doesn't have much of a wait, or the Lion King show, and that was about it. We knew Exedition Everest would have a really long wait.

So, we all agreed to head back to the Fort.

Here is the required photo from the bridge with the Tree of Life in the background:

Here are a couple of more shots of the AK Christmas tree. This is a close up of one of the ornaments:

And this is a shot from the base, looking up:

That is one tall tree!

As we left the park to head to the parking lot, we were treated to a spectacular sunset:

What a perfect day it had been.

Remember, we began with sunrise over the totem poles, and now we are enjoying sunset over Animal Kingdom.

We hightailed it back to the Fort.

I went to Dave's site and enjoyed some Russian beer. As I recall, the beers all had very communist sounding names followed by a number. I think I liked #3 the best, but who knows. What I do know is that I really enjoyed the company of several Fiends who were also there along with Dave and his wonderful family. Dave also had a big dutch oven full of peach cobbler going on his grill. I was supposed to go back there later to get some, but I never made it. Thanks for the beer Dave!

After the beer tasting, I picked up the girls, and we did some early evening looping, enjoying the decorations that were now in full swing. It was the night before Thanksgiving, and the Fort was packed to the seams, and there were a lot of decorations.

On our visit to the Settlement, I was very happy to see that the lights on the Fort's Christmas tree were now finally working. The hadn't been for the two previous nights:

When we looped around the 800 loop, we noticed that the fake Shanta had a light show going at his site:

I made a mental note to head over to the group camping area to let the hippie in the colorful tee pee know about this.

But then I thought it was unlikely that he would want to leave his tee pee after smoking his hippie lettuce all day that late at night.

I'm sure he would like this, though.

We were all surprised to see that a cabin person had decorated his cabin site so well:

Way to go, Cabin Person!

We then headed back to our site for a while.

While we were chilling there, I noticed a golf cart loop by with a couple of strange passengers on the back:

We hopped on our cart to chase this cart down.

They were driving really slow, so it was no problem catching them:

Guess who it was?

Fake Shanta!

He asked twin #1 if she would like to take a photo with him.

She told me in a low voice, "no Fortin' way!"

But I said don't be rude, humor the guy.

So here you go:

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

So, I won't take the time to say what I thought about all of this.

But, I will say one word:

Yikes!

I'm not sure what this fake Shanta is up to, but he and his old lady have preprinted cards on hand to pass out to their fans.

Here is the card fake Shanta gave to twin #1:

Again, a picture is worth a thousand words.

And that one really says it all.

What the Fort?

And, I repeat, for emphasis, Yikes!

Please make sure that you get a load of Mrs. Clause.

From here, it was time to move on to our evening activity.

The MK was open to midnight all week.

I love that fact.

And, we decided to take advantage of that.

So, that's where we will be heading next.

TCD

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

Nice update!! You know you could have gone on Single Rider on Everest??!!!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Nice update!! You know you could have gone on Single Rider on Everest??!!!

Yes- I know. For some reason, we never do that. And, the thing is that when it's the three of us, one of us has to be a single rider anyway.

TCD

[stefa70 205]

The shamu beetle is cute! I always thought about buying one of those, and even test drove one. The salesman was an ass-munch though, so I walked. A beetle kind of fits me, what do ya think?

I have pictures of all 4 trees in all 4 parks, and AK was my favorite. I will get to that soon in my report. (and yes, I got the whole tree in my shot. )

I would like to give a voice to Twin #1 in that photo with fake Shanta:

"Dad, I can't believe you thought this was a good idea! I will get even with you for this!"

Ask her if that was anything close to what she was thinking.

[doodlebug....Cherie 461]

The shamu beetle is cute! I always thought about buying one of those, and even test drove one. The salesman was an ass-munch though, so I walked. A beetle kind of fits me, what do ya think?

I have pictures of all 4 trees in all 4 parks, and AK was my favorite. I will get to that soon in my report. (and yes, I got the whole tree in my shot. )

I would like to give a voice to Twin #1 in that photo with fake Shanta:

"Dad, I can't believe you thought this was a good idea! I will get even with you for this!"

Ask her if that was anything close to what she was thinking.

I pictured her singing "Dad is a Dead Man" to the tune of Here Comes Santa Claus. :rofl2:

.Great update, Andrew!

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

I have never seen the Nemo show. I don't know why, we go to AK every trip because Mama loves it. I am going to rectify this one day soon. I don't blame Twin #1, I just don't like the looks of fake Shanta!

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

1. Twin #1eyes are proclaiming her desire to hurt you grieviously.

2. Fake Shanta looks a bit intoxicated in that card photo

3. That tree is more than just tall...

4. Why does Fake Shanta have hippie colors doing a show on his trailer? There is something wrong with that.

5. got nothing more.... waiting.....patiently... or not... (laundry day again)

[caveat lector 181]

I sense that somewhere at this point.....Rocky is having "Fort withdrawal" :dance:

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Great update, TCD! But it makes me miss the days when the real Shanta could visit the Fort at Christmas time. But now he is too busy being Santa at Christmas time. Always enjoyed his TR's.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

The shamu beetle is cute! I always thought about buying one of those, and even test drove one. The salesman was an ass-munch though, so I walked. A beetle kind of fits me, what do ya think?

I have pictures of all 4 trees in all 4 parks, and AK was my favorite. I will get to that soon in my report. (and yes, I got the whole tree in my shot. )

I would like to give a voice to Twin #1 in that photo with fake Shanta:

"Dad, I can't believe you thought this was a good idea! I will get even with you for this!"

Ask her if that was anything close to what she was thinking.

I just saw your photo of the MK Christmas tree in your report. We didn't get to see it on this trip, because they don't put it up until after they tape the Christmas parade.

The oldest TCD DD has a Beetle. It has been a great car for her.

I left something out about how much twin #1 liked fake Shanta.

After the photo, she said that fake Shanta had his hand on her butt!

I wrote that off as unintentional.

I sure hope that was the case.

The guy seemed nice enough.

But, what the heck did this guy think he was doing?

I pictured her singing "Dad is a Dead Man" to the tune of Here Comes Santa Claus. :rofl2:

.Great update, Andrew!

I think that is pretty much the case.

I have never seen the Nemo show. I don't know why, we go to AK every trip because Mama loves it. I am going to rectify this one day soon. I don't blame Twin #1, I just don't like the looks of fake Shanta!

Y'all definitely must go and see the Nemo show.

It is a great thing to do on a hot AK day in between using Fastpasses.

1. Twin #1eyes are proclaiming her desire to hurt you grieviously.

2. Fake Shanta looks a bit intoxicated in that card photo

3. That tree is more than just tall...

4. Why does Fake Shanta have hippie colors doing a show on his trailer? There is something wrong with that.

5. got nothing more.... waiting.....patiently... or not... (laundry day again)

Yeah, somthing is not quite right about that fake Shanta.

I sense that somewhere at this point.....Rocky is having "Fort withdrawal" :dance:

True. Rocky is seriously upset that he keeps getting left at home.

I told him that I would make it up to him, and I hope to do that very soon!

Great update, TCD! But it makes me miss the days when the real Shanta could visit the Fort at Christmas time. But now he is too busy being Santa at Christmas time. Always enjoyed his TR's.

Agreed.

It's been a while since I've seen a post from Shanta.

I'm sure he is super busy this time of year.

Hopefully, he will see this report sometime and know that we are all thinking of him.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Well, as long as my computer is working, I may as well carry on with this report.

We left off on Wednesday night.

I know that the beer tasting had moved over to the 1600 loop, but we were heading over to the MK.

First, we had a visitor to our site.

It was a Fort ranger.

He gave us this:

This guy was actually going around our loop passing out these guides.

At about 9:30 on Wednesday night!

The funny thing is that I had asked about an activity guide for Thanksgiving when we checked in. The castmember told me that there wasn't one. That was strange, because they print these up for all the major holidays lately. I figured maybe they weren't ready yet. So, just that day we has stopped at the Bike Barn to ask if there were any special activities planned for Thanksgiving. Since a lot of the activities are based there, I figured that castmember would know. The young man working there said that as far as he knew, there wasn't anything special planned for Thanksgiving. Well, that was that, I thought. Until the elderly ranger came around our loop at 9:30.

And people say that I am unfair in my criticism of the way the Fort is managed?

Anyway, I was happy to see the activity guide.

But, I also noted that they have reverted to calling what they had been calling corn toss back to Cornhole.

And, they were going to have a scavenger hunt!

And the thankful board was going to be back.

Hooray!

After this little surprise, we headed down to the dock.

I usually do a better job at timing these things, but we arrived while the EWP was still performing.

We enjoyed that thoroughly, as we always do.

I can't imagine how anyone would not like this:

Since our boat was waiting for the EWP to clear, we were able to board right away and head to the MK.

As we cruised along, the MK fireworks began. We got to enjoy those all the way to the dock, and they were still going on as we walked up to the MK entrance:

One thing that we came to see that night was the show that they have been projecting on the castle all year- it's called The Magic, The Memories and You. This was the big deal for 2011- they project photos and videos on the castle. We have only seen this a couple of times. We weren't overly impressed.

I really thought that they would not be able to do this show with the Dreamlights on the castle.

But, they can and they did.

Here is what we saw:

First, the castle is lit with the Dreamlights:

Then, the show begins-

Supposedly, they project photos that were taken during that day up on the castle. And, I think some of them were, but most of these photos and all of the videos seem like they are used in every show:

At the end, they added some holiday themed projections:

I thought this one, making the castle look like a gingerbread house, was really good:

I ended up being glad that we spent the time to watch the show.

I think it's cool that they can transform the castle like that.

Even with all of the lights on it.

We spent a bit of time wandering around the MK after this, and rode a couple of the attractions in Tommorowland.

We finished up our night with some ice cream from the Main Street ice cream parlor.

What a great way to finish a great day.

We headed back to the Fort from here and called it a night.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we will have a very busy day!

TCD

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

I am falling down on my park activities, I have not seen the castle show either. That is really neat that they are able to change the look of the castle and I definitely love the gingerbread house!

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

Next Nov if they have this going already, I am going to make a point to see it.

[stefa70 205]

:rofl2: :rofl2: :rofl2:

Ok, I know all about your aversion to the name "cornhole", but honestly, it makes sense.

You're tossing corn filled bags into a hole.

"Corn toss", sounds like what farmers do when they walk into a chicken coop.

What killed me was you using cornhole and then scavenger hunt in the next sentence. Now that's just wrong!

Good job getting pictures from the castle show! I wanted to, I just couldn't handle it anymore.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I am falling down on my park activities, I have not seen the castle show either. That is really neat that they are able to change the look of the castle and I definitely love the gingerbread house!

It is a very nice show. There is a soundtrack that goes with it with great narration.

I am not sure if this show will continue in to the new year.

Since Disney will usually beat things to death, I suspect that it will.

Next Nov if they have this going already, I am going to make a point to see it.

This show went on all year this year.

I am not sure if it will continue in to the next or not.

If it does, I would expect the holiday version would begin sometime in November.

:rofl2: :rofl2: :rofl2:

Ok, I know all about your aversion to the name "cornhole", but honestly, it makes sense.

You're tossing corn filled bags into a hole.

"Corn toss", sounds like what farmers do when they walk into a chicken coop.

What killed me was you using cornhole and then scavenger hunt in the next sentence. Now that's just wrong!

Good job getting pictures from the castle show! I wanted to, I just couldn't handle it anymore.

Is there really corn in those bags?

I don't think so.

But, I don't want to discuss this anymore either.

I enjoyed the holiday version of that show on the castle. We went to the second show, so it was not too crowded. We have been before where the crowds made it very miserable. The first time we saw it, we were surrounded by a tour group not from this land who had no concept of personal space. Dislike.

TCD

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

Nice update!!! Too bad you didnt stick around for more of the beer/wine gathering, I heard it was a hoot, with some GREAT pictures!!!

[stefa70 205]

Is there really corn in those bags?

I don't think so.

TCD

It absolutely is! I actually ordered my bags from a lady in Iowa who was selling them to make side money for her daughter's college fund.

The story behind cornhole is it started in the northern states.(supposedly Ohio) When winter struck and they couldn't do any outside activites, they came up with cornhole. You can play it indoors, and the bags won't harm anything if you have an errant toss. (Unlike horseshoes) Hope that makes you feel better about it.

When I first got mine, we met a gentlemen at Tropical Palms who walked up and asked if he could play with us. We sucked at it, so I said "sure." He proceeded to land all four bags in the hole. He was from Ohio and was a tournament champion! We then asked him to go home.

JK, he showed us a lot of technique and told us the history behind it.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I think one more update today would be a good idea, given that I wasn't able to post any yesterday.

It is now Thursday morning.

Thanksgiving Day.

Remember that we were supposed to go home yesterday, but we won a reprieve.

But part of the deal was that we would have to attend Thanksgiving dinner back home.

Which is about 90 miles west of where we were.

We have done that before on Thanksgiving.

And that is what we would do today.

That meant we needed to hit the road by 8.

But, that gave me a little time early in the day to do some looking around.

Thanksgiving is a busy, busy day at WDW.

And at the Fort, too.

But, the day began like every other day at the Fort.

Calm and peaceful.

That is why I'm and early riser at the Fort.

The peace and quiet cannot be beat!

Here we are looking at the Meadow Trading Post as the sky begins to lighten in the east:

Although I love just about everything about Fort Wilderness, there are parts that I think are outstanding. The Meadow Trading Post building and the landscaping around it are perfect, in my opinion:

I thought I needed a photo of a decorated bus stop, so I took this occasion to take a photo of the 900/1000 loop bus stop:

Here's another "Sunrise Over _____________" photo. This one is Sunrise over the 1200 loop:

I headed toward the four way stop from here, and turned toward the 2000 loop.

Here is how the sky looked in the east- that's the 1700 loop over there:

Here's that decorated cabin we saw on Wednesday night as it looks in the daylight:

I drove past the Real Men of Genius' site:

Even though they one the award by a landslide, I see they were going for extra credit by having tiki torches at their site. Those are not allowed at the Fort.

I didn't know that these guys were part of an organized group, but they are. They had their official sign hanging right there on their big canopy:

I have never met any of these guys personally.

I think Donnie hung with them one Thanksgiving.

I'll bet he fit right in.

From here we had to go check on the tee pees.

The sun is just hitting the tops of the trees across the little pond here:

The tee pee people were still all asleep:

Which I found interesting. Because that meant they hadn't started cooking their turkeys yet. I thought it would take a long time to cook a turkey in a pit, but I guess it doesn't.

The Meadow Trading Post wasn't open yet, but I headed over there to check on the brown paint project that had been going on on the back porch.

As I walked around back, I stopped to admire this big Sycamore tree, like I always do. Most of the trees around the Fort do not drop their leaves, but this tree does, and it had been doing that over the past month. I love the colors of the leaves left on the tree:

Note the work cart at the bottom of the photo.

Believe it or not, a castmember was hard at work right here on Thankgiving morning.

I'll bet he was not a Happy Camper.

To my surprise, the brown paint contractor had completed his work and was gone:

As I approached the back porch of the Trading Post, I had to stop to take a look across the lake toward the Bike Barn, because that is what I always do:

The Bike Barn is another perfectly placed and themed building at the Fort.

I am happy to report that the back porch of the Meadow Trading Post remains nice and brown:

The brown paint crew painted around this old sign with its odd lettering:

This sign is a bit out of date now. In this past year, they have put signs on every picnic table in the Fort saying do not feed the wildlife. Not on the porch. Not off the porch. Not anywhere. Do you have any idea how many picnic tables there are at the Fort? Over a thousand, easily! That is a lot of do not feed the wildlife signs. So, why is this one still here?

Bear rock looked very nice and bear-ish this morning:

And TnBob had still not shown up on his empty dock:

Here is another sunrise photo.

I call this one Sunrise Over the area across the lake from TnBob's dock."

But I am thinking of changing the title to something a little shorter.

I'll get back to you on that.

That old sycamore was really shedding its leaves:

That is a close as we get to having a season called fall in Florida.

The back porch looks great with its Christmas decorations:

There's a big wreath back here too:

Here's the castmember that went with that cart that we saw just a second ago:

I've seen this guy around the Fort before, but I haven't met him yet. He could pass for Morgan Freeman. But, I didn't bother him today. The poor guy was here to rake leaves on Thanksgiving morning. The poor guy has a jerk for a boss, I would say.

Now we are in front of the Trading Post, looking across the area in front toward the 900 loop. I love the mossy trees here:

Since I was in the area, I headed over to the footbridge in the 600 loop. Here's the canal that runs under that bridge:

And the lake that feeds that canal:

Look how calm and peaceful this all is.

Later today, there will be beer swilling campers tossing bags full of corn and scavenger hunting all over the place around here. But for now, all is calm.

From here, I headed to the camper and got the girls up and in the truck.

I pointed the truck West and hit the gas.

An hour and a half later, we were back home.

We all got ourselves ready to head over to Mrs. TCD's sister's house for a big old Thanksgiving meal.

Rocky was happy to see us, but gave us the cold shoulder at the same time.

I took him out for a walk, and found out what my next door neighbor has been working on in his shed these past few months:

Check that out!

The guy turned his lawnmower into a train engine, and then made three utility wagons into train cars.

Those are his grandchildren enjoying the train. The bigger kid is his nephew.

Which made me stop and think for a while. We moved next door just about 20 years ago. Our oldest DD had just turned one, and the twins weren't even a twinkle in my eye. My neighbor had two teenaged daughters and a younger son. Now, all of his kids were off and married, and he had all these grandchildren that he was driving around on his train. How did that happen?

I don't know, but I thought this was awesome, so I shared it, even though it didn't happen at the Fort. But it did happen during our trip, which is not over yet by any means.

From here, we went to eat some turkey. And a lot more.

And then it was back to the Fort.

We will pick up our story from there in the next post.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Hey-

I missed inserting the Sunrise Over the Area Across From TnBob's Dock photo in that last update.

When I went back to edit it, I was going to have to fix all of the spacing in that long post.

So, instead of that, here's that photo:

Sorry for the oversight.

TCD