Error Message: TCD's Spring Break 2012 Trip Report!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Even though this trip report is over, there are some comments that I need to respond to.

Also, I have some follow-up photos of the baby cardinals.

First, let's get the responses taken care of:

Forgot to mention, also due to me reading your TR and talking about it, my husband and oldest son cruised over to peek in on the former RC. We never knew that place was back there, despite frequenting FW for the past 5 years and WDW for the past 20. Huh!

Next time, I will try to get online while we're at the fort to meet up with some of this group and/or get a spike, now that I've read more and see how that all works.

Two things:

1. Good job on taking a look at River Country! I hope they got a good look, because it is all going to be gone one day.

2. If you let everyone know when you will be at the Fort next, and post your site number when you get there, you have a very good chance of being spiked.

I see a pair of Cardinals outside my office window...haven't spotted the nest...but see mom and dad flying around...the nest must be close by. Really enjoyed the baby pictures...congratulations to the girls!

As you will soon learn, our cardinal family has already moved on.

The whole process is rather amazing.

I have absolutely no idea how to convert from vhs to dvd to upload to photobucket. But let me work on it and I will see what I can do. It would probably be easier for me to just mail it to you :laugh: .

No worries. I don't have any idea how to do it either. I just thought if you knew how, it would be fun to see some old Fort videos.

TCD Thanks for the shout out! Sorry to be tardy to the party. I am catching up on TR's and finally reached this one. You da man!

Look for my avatar to contain a part of that card soon. I have been working the photoshop magic on it.

My boys loved this game as well.

Well, I see that you have a new avatar.

That Yensid is one scary looking sorcerer.

We have been back to WDW already since this past trip, and the TCD twins have really gotten in to the SOTMK game.

And, oddly, so have I.

TCD,

You had a link in this report to some old Fort Wilderness brochures. I looked at them briefly, and wanted to check them out again. For some reason, I can't find the link and I can't find what forum you posted them in. Can you guide me to it?

Thanks, Heidi

Just so you don't have to possibly wait until Monday (hopefully TCD is off this weekend on an adventure) here is the link.

Nice work, G2P! (aren't you glad I dropped the Captain Obvious?).

As a matter of fact, I was off on an adventure this past weekend.

Do you know what that means?

Go ahead and guess.

After all, we don't call you Captain Obvious for nothing!

Well, I'm finally caught up!!

Cartman is also anti-hippie. Hmmm.

But then again Cartman is anti-anything not Cartman.

I'm also pro-Fantasmic.

Good job to the twins!!

Wow, another Fantasmic fan.

I guess I'm going to give it another chance on a future visit.

Thanks for the info on Cartman. If he's anti-hippie, then he must be an OK guy.

For a cartoon character.

1. I hate having limited internet in the middle of a TCD TR.

2. Congrats to the TCD Twins.

3. Never seen fantasmic but if that's the crowd don't care too.

4. Lou, are you sure your "normal"? After all you don't read TR's but you do post on them in context. That can't be a "normal" ability.

5. Thanks for the TR, TCD. Even if I didn't get to enjoy it as it was posted.

There you are!

I was wondering what happened to you.

I figured it was either the laundry or lack of internet service, or a combo of both.

TCD! I have missed you on those "other" boards and always wondered what happened to you. Not sure what happened and really none of my business. I am just glad I have re-discovered you here! I read this report after also catching up on your Thanksgiving trip. I cannot promise that I will post much bc I feel like people on forums/boards sometimes misread things and then the internet world goes crazy on the poster. Regardless of whatever happened (you mentioned something earlier in this thread) I appreciate the time and energy that you put into these reports and I will likely lurk much more than I post. However, I came out of complete lurk-dom to say hello. New FF Member here! I cant wait for your next report and to check out this new site.....at least new to me! Thanks TCD and congrats to your daughters. That is a great accomplishment.

Hey, welcome!

You made my day!

I am always glad to see a new member here.

I couldn't explain what happened at the other place if I tried. Because I don't really understand it either.

That all happened over a year ago and is in the past.

As a former lurker, now a new member, you are entitled to a genuine Fort Wilderness Raliroad spike. Just let me know when you will be at the Fort next, and I will see what I can do to get it to you.

OK- that covers it.

I will be back with those cardinal photos and then this trip report will be finished.

Just in time to start up the new one.

Yes I said new one!

TCD

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

There you are!

I was wondering what happened to you.

I figured it was either the laundry or lack of internet service, or a combo of both.

TCD

actually it was the mostly the lack of internet service and somewhat the golf course....

laundry was taken care, those grandma's are good for something!

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

Thanks TCD! We will not be at the Fort until Feb 2nd or 3rd. It is supposed to be the 3rd, but I am trying to weasel my way into getting there on the 2nd instead bc the 3rd is Super Bowl Sunday.....and I dont want to be rushed before the game. If you are there, I would love to meet up, have a beer, and of course....get the spike! I remember the railroad when I was a little kid, when it was only running occassionally. I remember thinking it was cool and wishing it would have stayed after it was closed down permanently. I was telling my wife last night about you being picked as "that guy" numerous times. She loves that part of the show so she thought it was hilarious that you have been picked so much.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Thanks TCD! We will not be at the Fort until Feb 2nd or 3rd. It is supposed to be the 3rd, but I am trying to weasel my way into getting there on the 2nd instead bc the 3rd is Super Bowl Sunday.....and I dont want to be rushed before the game. If you are there, I would love to meet up, have a beer, and of course....get the spike! I remember the railroad when I was a little kid, when it was only running occassionally. I remember thinking it was cool and wishing it would have stayed after it was closed down permanently. I was telling my wife last night about you being picked as "that guy" numerous times. She loves that part of the show so she thought it was hilarious that you have been picked so much.

OK-Superbowl weekend. Got it.

So you're a golden domer?

You won't want to read about my visit to the FSU v. ND bowl game in my New Year's trip report, then.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Even though we all thought this trip report was finished, especially me, there are a couple of follow up issues I need to address.

The first one concerns the Team Disney building, where Lou and I ate lunch during our day of exploring some of the behind the scenes venues at WDW.

Lou and I ate our lunch by a huge bank of windows which overlooked a big decorative pool outside of the building. When we left the building, we stopped to take a look at the 7 dwarf sculpture right outside of the building entrance. As we looked around, Lou remarked that he thought that there used to be a reflecting pool in the front of the building, so it appeared that the building was floating on water. When we were there, there was no reflecting pool in front of the building- it was just a huge grass lawn.

Well, guess what?

Lou was right!

Here's a screen cap from Google Earth from the most recent image of the building, which is January 2012:

Now, here's a screen cap of the same place from 2008:

In case you are not seeing the difference, the building is the large rectangle in the center, and the big round object in the middle of the rectangle is the sun dial. The entrance area is to the right of the sundial. You can clearly see that there is a big reflecting pool in the entry area, and that the place where the 7 dwarf sculpture now is was a circle.

You can't see the water as clearly in this photo from May, 2010, but it is still there:

The water disappears in the image for December, 2010, but the circle is still there.

So, the lawn and the sculpture that are now in front of the building were added some time after January, 2011.

Which means that Lou is not losing his marbles.

The other thing I wanted to share is some information about the sundial. This is the largest sundial in North or South America, at least according to this article:

http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/research/buildings/fenestration/disney.htm

When Lou and I were looking around, we saw nothing that explained how this sundial supposedly worked. Now that I have read the article, I understand why no one made an effort to try to explain it.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Now, to tie up that last loose end . . .

This is an update about the cardinals.

To make it easy, I will post all of the photos I have of them in this post.

As I mentioned earlier, when we returned from this trip, Mrs. TCD informed us that a cardinal had lay four eggs in a nest in a hedge on the side of our house.

On April 10th, the eggs hatched, and there were four little birds in the nest:

The mother and father cardinal took turns feeding the babies:

The four babies seemed to be always hungry. Over the next few days, we watched as feathers seemed to sprout overnight:

One morning, there were only two babies in the nest.

We could hear the other two chirping from somewhere in the hedge, and we saw the father bird continue to fly in to the hedge with food. It appeared that two of the babies were ready to leave the nest, which is normal, and that two stayed behind. But that was only for one more day. In just 8 days after they hatched, the babies left the nest:

The last photo above was the last we saw of the babies.

We heard them in the hedge for about a day, but we have not seen or heard them since.

We think they all moved on to a wooded area near our home, which is where the mother and father cardinal would fly out of with food to feed the babies.

We are keeping our eyes peeled to see if we spot any of the babies flying around. If we spot them, I will try to get some updated photos.

But for now, this is all that I have.

And now, this trip report is finally done.

I think.

Which is a good thing, because I have another one that I need to start.

TCD

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

The article lost me at the geometry.

[stefa70 205]

8 days and they left the nest?

WTFort am I doing wrong?

Nathen is almost 22 and still nesting comfortably!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

The article lost me at the geometry.

I know.

After I re-read this sentence a couple of times, I gave up on the rest: "The north wall of the sundial, just below where the tapered yellow shaft gnomon joins the top of the wall, is given the same angle (85.09 degrees above the horizon, 4.94 degrees from the vertical) as the sun at solar noon on the summer solstice."

But, I am going to check with Lou to see if he can get me in there at noon on the summer solstice so I can see the shadow hit the granite disk. Woo Hoo that would be something to see.

Not.

Classic Michael Eisner stuff.

8 days and they left the nest?

WTFort am I doing wrong?

Nathen is almost 22 and still nesting comfortably!

Those birds don't mess around. You can see that after 8 days there wasn't room in the nest for all of them, so it was time to move out.

Maybe we should use the term "bird brain" differently.

The birds seem to be smarter than us.

TCD

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

OK-Superbowl weekend. Got it.

So you're a golden domer?

You won't want to read about my visit to the FSU v. ND bowl game in my New Year's trip report, then.

TCD

I grew up both a Notre Dame and Michigan fan.....although I have become a slightly bigger ND fan over the years for a variety of reasons. That being said Michigan-Notre Dame Saturday each year is sort of bittersweet bc no matter what....one of my teams will be saddled with a loss early in the year. I also have received quite a bit of job training from Michigan State and have also taught training classes there, but MSU fandom has not taken hold as of yet. I am going to try and add a photo (which you would like) from one of our recent trips if I can figure out how to add photos to a post. I have tried to add photos to a post and my signature but it says I can only post them from a URL. I am sure there is somewhere on here that will give me an explanation on posting photos, so I'll post it ASAP. AC

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

I figured it out TCD and here is the photo as promised. We went into a store in Downtown Disney and he immediately saw this helmet on top of a display and had to try it on. My son likes ND and Michigan but also likes the Gators. He is a big Tebow fan.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I figured it out TCD and here is the photo as promised. We went into a store in Downtown Disney and he immediately saw this helmet on top of a display and had to try it on. My son likes ND and Michigan but also likes the Gators. He is a big Tebow fan.

That is an awesome photo!

And that is one smart kid if he's a Tebow fan!

Since your son loves Tebow, here's a photo from the TCD archives of TCD Twin #1 and her boyfriend (this was right before she got tazed) :

TCD

[stefa70 205]

TCD Twin #1 and her boyfriend (this was right before she got tazed) :

TCD

:rotfl5: Seems like a fair trade. (though he doesn't sport a beard)

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

:rofl3:

Thats funny. I dont care who you are.

Cool pic.