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

[Gots2pitt.. Jeff 64]

I figured the panther would have fallen through the crumbling rocks.

[Lou... 3,118]

I figured the panther would have fallen through the crumbling rocks.

You'll notice that those rocks are not crumbling, Hmmm, makes you wonder.

[kampfirekim 260]

:rofl2: Good one.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

OK, Let's see how we did here:

YOWSERS!!! Scary there!

April Fools!

And I'm not gonna attempt to one-up you on those bragging rights!

Seriously, a panther at the fort is a scary thing. Shouldn't someone be notified?

That makes two.

Yep. I certainly wouldn't want to get too close to one of those panthers. Or a cougar. Those are even scarier, especially if they've been drinking.

Although I've got a nagging suspicion that this may be the April Fool's reference TCD was referring to, because I can't see him ever *NOT* going back in to River Country.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, and TCD will get his cousin Yuri to act as panther bait for the next round of photos.

Either way, Yikes!

Hmmm. A skeptic.

Is that the april fools joke?

Maybe a little fooled?

Nice try TCD, but no.

Of course.

And you don't even read trip reports!

I was mauled by a cougar once.......

at a bar in Aspen.

BTW TCD,

That was obviously one of Disney's autonomous animatronics that they have been testing. It's a joint effort between Disney and the DOD. They will be used throughout the parks and in Afghanistan.

LOL at your being mauled by a Cougar in Aspen.

Call me fooled.......... D'OH!!!

Fooled!

If this was the April Fool's joke you totally got me. Good one. :rofl3:

OK, that makes three (Carol, Gwen and Misty).

I only hope this is his April Fool's joke!

It is!

Don't let anyone say you're a slow learner!

I was going to ask you if you soiled your shorts but I think I'll just raise the flag on this one.

:bs:

I did like the shot with the sprinklers running though.

No, not the B.S. flag!

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I figured the panther would have fallen through the crumbling rocks.

LOL!

Good one!

You'll notice that those rocks are not crumbling, Hmmm, makes you wonder.

Oh wow! Look at Lou and all his fancy powers of observation!

I'm impressed!

:rofl2: Good one.

Thanks.

Well, I guess three of you were fooled.

And maybe some other who aren't brave enough to admit it.

What we have here is some real photos of River Country in the morning. And yes, that gate was really unlocked.

But that Florida panther is really just a plain old lion.

I don't know what it was doing in River Country.

What a bunch of suckers to think that lion was a panther.

OK- that lion was not in River Country.

That was a photo from the AK Safari, which I took at Sunset that night.

We will get to that part of the story in due time.

For now, I owe you an update about what really happened on Sunday morning.

I will get to work on that right away.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

While you are waiting for the update, here's a photo from the TCD archives(circa 2008).

It shows the two cranes they used to build Bay Lake Tower:

As you can see, the cranes were quite a bit taller than the building ended up being, so maybe the Four Seasons building will not be as imposing as that purple first grade representation may have lead you to believe. Then again, maybe they will raise the cranes higher after they get the first part of the building up.

TCD

[Gots2pitt.. Jeff 64]

Oooohh.. I just noticed.. 1000 posts.. and why is that awesome? Because it was on another AWESOME TCD TR!! Did anyone ever say this site wouldn't be the same with out you TCD (yes the same can be said for everyone here)? Thanks for the trip reports and looking forward to the rest of this one.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Oooohh.. I just noticed.. 1000 posts.. and why is that awesome? Because it was on another AWESOME TCD TR!! Did anyone ever say this site wouldn't be the same with out you TCD (yes the same can be said for everyone here)? Thanks for the trip reports and looking forward to the rest of this one.

Yes, Jeff, that is awesome!

Especially since you are kind of new to the site.

Great job!

And this post gives me a chance to break out my soapbox.

One cool feature on this board shows us how many people are reading a thread at any given time. If the reader is a member, his or her name is displayed. If the reader is not a member, it just says guest. There almost always seem to be guests reading along. If you are one of them, I urge you to take the leap and become a member. That way you can post, and interact, and have fun on the threads.

And, I will make you an offer you can't refuse: anyone who comes out of lurkdom and posts on this thread will receive a genuine Fort Wilderness Railroad spike hand delivered by yours truly to your site the next time you are at the Fort. And that is no April Fools joke.

So, if you are a guest/lurker, I am talking to you.

It's time for you to become a full-fledged Fiend.

It's free!

And it's fun!

TCD

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

Yes, Jeff, that is awesome!

Especially since you are kind of new to the site.

Great job!

And this post gives me a chance to break out my soapbox.

One cool feature on this board shows us how many people are reading a thread at any given time. If the reader is a member, his or her name is displayed. If the reader is not a member, it just says guest. There almost always seem to be guests reading along. If you are one of them, I urge you to take the leap and become a member. That way you can post, and interact, and have fun on the threads.

And, I will make you an offer you can't refuse: anyone who comes out of lurkdom and posts on this thread will receive a genuine Fort Wilderness Railroad spike hand delivered by yours truly to your site the next time you are at the Fort. And that is no April Fools joke.

So, if you are a guest/lurker, I am talking to you.

It's time for you to become a full-fledged Fiend.

It's free!

And it's fun!

TCD

Just an FYI, not all "guests" are true guests. A lot of them are search engines/web crawlers, crawling through our site to add our links to their search engines!!

Some are folks that don't log in each and every time they read the forum.

However, you are right, lurkers please JOIN!!!

[Lou... 3,118]

And, I will make you an offer you can't refuse: anyone who comes out of lurkdom and posts on this thread will receive a genuine Fort Wilderness Railroad spike hand delivered by yours truly to your site the next time you are at the Fort.

(Clearing throat.)

Umm, did you forget someone?

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

Ok, I fell for that hook, line and sinker. I called my big cat loving son over to show him. I think he doubted it right away, but hid his doubt from his mom.

Oh, and "Aye" - I want to see some 'stache photos as well.

I also would enjoy a vintage TR from the great TCD, so we can all vicariously re-live the old days. :D

[Lil Lisa 53]

(Clearing throat.)

Umm, did you forget someone?

Looks like you are being phased out... :rofl2:

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

OK, I owe you a real update, and here it comes.

I did not go to River Country or see a panther/lion on Sunday morning.

What really happened is I decided to head over to the Meadow Trading Post.

We already know from other awesome Fiends that they have done some landscaping recently around TnBob's dock.

There used to be a bed of azeleas along the shoreline and some larger shrubs by the dock. Those plants have been removed, and this is how things looked last week:

Here's another shot of the area, turned a bit to the right. There's TnBob's dock. Even though we have had a very mild winter and warm spring here in Florida, the gum trees over there are just now sprouting their leaves:

The big sycamore tree next to the Meadow Trading Post has sprouted its leaves, though:

And it hasn't only sprouted leaves.

It has also sprouted a zillion seed pods:

These will fall off over the summer and remind folks not to walk around the Fort barefoot.

Across the fishin' hole, we can see that the cypress trees in front of the Bike Barn have new, green leaves:

There was once a time that this duck sign was necessary, because there were a lot of ducks in the fishin' hole:

But, when was the last time anyone saw a duck in the Fort?

As I thought about it that morning, it had been a while for me.

Where have all the ducks gone?

Do panthers eat ducks?

Here's a closer look at those Gum trees that we just took a look at from across the fishin' hole:

You can see that their leaves are sprouting. Probably if I went to the Fort and took a photo now, the leaves would be in.

But they weren't quite there last week.

Bear rock remains high and dry and not very bear like. I still grinned at it, though:

TnBob, I checked on your bobbers, and they all seem to be where you left them (look to the far right center of this photo):

Another look at the bobbers:

Since the leaves were not fully in, I saw one that Bob put way up in the branches:

Maybe you can't see that one, so let me zoom in and show it to you:

I'm not sure if this fishing line is from Bob or someone else. I blame Bob:

Here's a look back at the Meadow Trading Post:

And guess what?

TnBob's dock has new landscaping. They replaced those big bushes with these little plants:

Nice, right?

It's like going to the Flower and Garden festival over at Epcot, I tell you.

There are lots of places in the Fort where I like to stand and admire the view. This is one of them:

That photo could be a postcard.

As long as you photoshopped the stupid trailers out of the photo along the shore of the fishin' hole to the left of the photo.

Stupid, greedy, Fort beancounters.

There's a big bird perched on one of the rocks over there.

I wonder if it's a crane? :

If you look across the fishin' hole here, you can see that there is some temporary fencing and some cones over there by the Bike Barn:

If you are wondering what that is all about, I can tell you. There is a bat infestation in the Bike Barn. At night, after the bats fly out, they put up netting to prevent them from coming back in. Some castmembers were showing up there and filling all of the gaps in the siding with some type of foam sealant. That way the bats can't get back in, and have to go make their homes elsewhere. Like maybe in someone's camper, or in a lady's hair or something, As long as they don't come back to the Bike Barn. I think I saw something like this on Billy the Exterminator. Only I think it involved crysanthemum spray. And a lot of leather and spikes.

But I digress.

Sorry.

Here is a look at the Trading Post from the dock. I think this is why TnBob is always on this dock:

After completing my inspection and documentation of the state of things around Bob's dock, I ventured in to the Trading Post to fill my mug with some of that great Nescafe' coffee.

I then test-drove one of the rocking chairs out front.

This is the view from there:

If you ever get a chance to sit in a rocking chair on the Meadow Trading Post front porch, be sure to choose a chair over toward the 600 loop. There are speakers here:

And they play the most interesting music.

When I last had the chance to set a spell here, those speakers were playing Christmas tunes played on a banjo. Today, I was serenaded by what sounded like native American music, complete with chanting Native Americans. Very cool.

I don't remember why I took this photo, but there is a really cruddy light fixture here too:

I love to sit on the porch and watch the Fort go by:

Hey, does that golf cart look familiar to anyone?

How about a closer look?:

Anyone?

Herbie Cart?

If you guessed fellow Fiend Starbuc71, you are correct.

He was at the Fort when I was there.

He had a sweet spot on the 800 loop.

He and his family were having a great time and keeping a low profile.

But, I found him.

And to teach him a lesson for trying to sneak into the Fort without letting anyone know, I brought Lou by his site one day.

I'll get to that part later in the story.

Dave,you were the first to post on this TR.

So, here's that stalker stealth photo I mentioned.

No, I was not stalking S71. I was just minding my own business on the porch, and he came zooming by.

I got bored of sitting in the rocking chair after a while. And, honestly, there is only so much Native American chanting I can take.

So, I headed back out through the Trading Post.

I decided to get a photo of the Hop Scotch game painted on the back sidewalk:

Whoever poured this sidewalk 34 year ago did a much better job than the ding-dongs who poured my now cracking driveway much more recently:

From here, it was back to base camp.

The girls were finally starting to stir.

So, I whipped up a big breakfast.

And we ate out at our picnic table.

No photos, as I am not allowed to take photos before the girls take their showers and fix themselves up in the morning.

But, I did take this photo of one of the geniuses from the big group on our site who decided that he should ride his golf cart all around the interior of the loop:

I got some good news that morning. The group was packing up to leave. To do so, they brought in even more cars, and parked them in the most creative places:

Where are those idiot rangers who were harassing me all of last year?

Oh well, at least the group was leaving.

And they did.

Eventually.

While we ate breakfast, we made our plan for the day.

The girls had briefly visited the small new part of Fantasyland last night, and they wanted to see it in the daylight. Also, some friends of theirs from home were at the MK, so we were going to try to meet up with them. So, our day would begin at the MK.

Since I am near the photo limit, we will pick up our story from there in the next post.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Just an FYI, not all "guests" are true guests. A lot of them are search engines/web crawlers, crawling through our site to add our links to their search engines!!

Some are folks that don't log in each and every time they read the forum.

However, you are right, lurkers please JOIN!!!

OK, but even if you are a search engine/web crawler, you will still get a spike if you join!

(Clearing throat.)

Umm, did you forget someone?

OK, now you are creeping me out.

How come you keep posting here?

You don't read trip reports.

So, how do you know if I am forgetting someone here?

And, anyway my deal to any one who leaves lurkdom and posts on this thread is that I will personally deliver the spike.

All kidding aside, the Fiend spiking program would not be the great success that it is without the efforts of the one and only Lou.

Thanks for your service, Lou.

You are truly one of a kind.

Ok, I fell for that hook, line and sinker. I called my big cat loving son over to show him. I think he doubted it right away, but hid his doubt from his mom.

Oh, and "Aye" - I want to see some 'stache photos as well.

I also would enjoy a vintage TR from the great TCD, so we can all vicariously re-live the old days. :D

Thanks for humoring me by saying you were fooled.

Props to your son for not being fooled.

Did I mention that not long ago I found the negatives and most of the photos from the first trip the TCD gang took to the Fort in our then new camper? That was in 1999.

When I get a chance, I am going to scan those photos, and we are going to have some fun.

But, first I have to finish this report.

And some other projects.

But, I will get there one of these days.

Looks like you are being phased out... :rofl2:

No, not at all.

Lou will never be phased out.

TCD

[TnBob 311]

Ok, I'm in, it only took 113 posts to get the good pictures in though, lets try harder new time.

[We4mickey 6]

TCD, I am late to this party. Darn work just gets in the way. Love your pics of the fort early in the morning, however, it just makes me sad that I can't be there. I wish we lived closer. Keep the updates coming, I am all in now.

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

A great report as always!

[caveat lector 181]

1. Big mechancial crane's obstructing a beautiful FORT view - BOOO
   
2. Nice little bird crane enjoying the lake view - YAY
   
3. Lou upgrading his PC to a Vic20, Commodore 64, or TI-99/4A so he can read your cool TR's - YAY
   
4. Being tricked by your April Fools Panther story - YAY (this wouldn't happen if your TR's weren't so darned immersive).
   

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Ok, I'm in, it only took 113 posts to get the good pictures in though, lets try harder new time.

Yes, sir. Memo to self. Begin next trip report at TnBob's dock.

TCD, I am late to this party. Darn work just gets in the way. Love your pics of the fort early in the morning, however, it just makes me sad that I can't be there. I wish we lived closer. Keep the updates coming, I am all in now.

Thanks, Lynn.

Did you see the photos of the Packer fans on the 600 loop?

Didn't you or your sister know them?

A great report as always!

Thanks, Gwen.

And the good news is that there is a lot more to come.

We are still on the morning of the first full day.

1. Big mechancial crane's obstructing a beautiful FORT view - BOOO
   
2. Nice little bird crane enjoying the lake view - YAY
   
3. Lou upgrading his PC to a Vic20, Commodore 64, or TI-99/4A so he can read your cool TR's - YAY
   
4. Being tricked by your April Fools Panther story - YAY (this wouldn't happen if your TR's weren't so darned immersive).
   

No way!

You did not fall for the April Fools prank.

Did you?

Thanks for saying that you did, even if you didn't.

TCD

[campingpixi 11]

TCD you take some amazing pics of the Fort! You have inspired me to get my butt up early when I get there and take a look around. I never realized that there was so much that I had missed when I went there! One thing is for sure I will not be missing anything any more!! THANKS!!!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

TCD you take some amazing pics of the Fort! You have inspired me to get my butt up early when I get there and take a look around. I never realized that there was so much that I had missed when I went there! One thing is for sure I will not be missing anything any more!! THANKS!!!

Hey, that's great!

I know that there are other folks who like to get up early too, so you won't be totally alone.

Whatever you do, do not go through that old River Country gate.

Or, if you do, make sure to bring two big sticks to bang together (I am remembering that right from the Parent Trap?)

TCD

[campingpixi 11]

:thumbsup1: thanks for the tip!!!

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

Or, if you do, make sure to bring two big sticks to bang together (I am remembering that right from the Parent Trap?)

That's too funny! I recently watched the Parent Trap again. Of course I could watch it over and over.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

There are some days that I do not have time to post an update to one of my trip reports.

And then there are days like today when I can post more than one update.

So, here comes another update.

But, don't expect this many tomorrow.

Or the next day either.

We left off with us finishing breakfast and deciding to head over to the MK.

While I waited for the girls to get ready, I decided to document a few things around the camper that I intended to mention in this trip report.

First, here is a photo of a book that I ordered after some discussion in a previous trip report about the Reedy Creek Improvement District:

I thought that I would learn a lot of interesting facts from this book. I did learn a bit. But a lot of it I had already heard, and the author repeated himself a few times. So, I would give this book a C for a grade. Average. A couple of things did stand out, though. One was that the property called the Bay Lake parcel was one of the first targeted by Disney when they started to sign options to buy land in central Florida. At the time (1965) the land that we now know as Fort Wilderness was owned by an Association of ten people who used the land as a retreat. Another interesting fact was that Disney ended up spending right around $5 million to aquire all the land we now know as Walt Disney World. That is a low price for so much land. But, when they bought it, this was basically just swamp and farm land of very little value to anyone. To say that Disney transformed central Florida is a huge understatement.

The next item we have a photograph of is this:

What's that, you ask?

It's a Dumbo Pillow Pet.

Twin #1 came home with it the night before.

Cute.

A couple other new items in the TCD camper:

Davy Crockett we have already talked about.

The other DVD is one that was mentioned here on FF.net not too long ago. We have an old VHS copy of it that the kids used to watch all the time, both at home and when we camped. It is a great DVD. It is a bunch of annoyingly energetic kids singing classic camping tunes. That part isn't so good. But what makes it worth watching is the fact that the videos were shot around the Fort. You can recognize a lot of the Fort in the video, and it's fun to watch.

Lucky for you the girls came back before I could take any more boring photos.

We headed down to the marina to catch a boat to the MK.

We get a lot of questions on this Board about when the boat transportation from the Fort begins and ends. These signs on the dock tell you what you need to know:

I'll tell you something, though- I think those signs were missing for a while, because if the boat times were so obvious, I don't think that there would be so many questions.

We had almost no wait for our boat, and we were on our way to the MK.

I went out back to snap some photos.

Here is the good old shoe tree:

Lately I have noticed that there are always a lot of birds hanging out on the shoe tree:

Somebody ought to do something about this.

This is the Shoe Tree.

Not the bird tree.

The birds need to go find another tree.

Over on the other side of the boat, we were passing by Discovery Island. You can't see much, but all the old buildings and even the old aviary are still there on this island. It is all obscured by heavy brush:

You can see that there is still a beacon light here by the old beach:

Here you can see the old sandy beach. There is stuff growing all over it now:

You can see the nets from the aviary through the trees in this photo:

The roof of a small building can be seen just behind the bushes in this photo:

The old shipwreck is still here:

Here we can see the tip of the island as we pass by:

There is a smaller island in Bay Lake that sits between Wilderness Lodge and the Contemporary Resort. Lately, there have been crews out there clearing out a lot of the undergrowth on that island. You can see that the shoreline has been cleared in these photos:

You can almost see right through the island now:

Before the clearing on this island, they cleared out the islands in the adjoining Seven Seas Lagoon.

It makes me wonder if Discovery Island might get the same treatment.

I saw something later in this trip that suggested maybe so.

But we will get to that in due time.

For now, we are headed to the MK.

Right before we crossed the water bridge over to the Seven Seas Lagoon, I could see that it looks like they expanded this little corner of the lake:

It seemed a little busy at the MK.

Since our main objective was to take a look at the new area of Fantasyland, we decided to take the train back there.

Here we are heading out of the train station:

This photo was supposed to be a big deal, because I spotted a castmember with a beard. But, the photo came out blurry, and it just looks like a guy with a dirty face.

Fail:

That's a sweet beard, though. You have to trust me on that.

This beard spotting is something that we learned of when we visited MK for Leap Day. Castmembers were just recently allowed to grow beards. So, it's a rare thing to spot one.

When we got on the train at the main station, we had to separate because the train was crowded.

When we stopped in Frontierland, we moved back to an empty bench in the back car of the train.

Before the castmember came back to take his place in the back, I popped back there for a couple of photos.

This is one:

And this is the other. This photos shows us that there is, indeed, a light at the end of the tunnel:

They are still going to town on Big Thunder Mountain. You can see a work light and scaffolding in this photo:

I never really paid attention to all of the detail that they included in this attraction. I don't think you can appreciate it when you are flying around the track, but the detail is pretty cool. Check out the wagon and the Dry Goods store here:

And the pigs and wagon in this shot:

I have noticed this bird and snake from the train before, but never while on the ride:

I never realized that there was a little dock back here, but there is. It looks like they keep extra Tom Sawyer's Island boats here:

I love the stuff we ride past on the train.

Like this little cabin on the river:

I took a bunch of photos of the Indian Village that we drove past next the last time we visited, so I skipped those photos this time around.

Next stop, the new Fantasyland Train Station.

I have to stop this post here because I have a load of new Fantasyland photos for the next one.

TCD

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

Neat pictures!