Trip Report Keep your eyes on the road, hands upon the wheel–A South West RT-The End!Bonus Tracks

[Luvchefmic]

Thanks for taking us along with you and Fran It was a terrific trip I think you're right about us here in the USA we need to see more of our country When I was a kid we had our family vacations but we stayed pretty much in the same areas NY, NJ, CT Had a summer rental every year in NJ Actually it's the place I learned to ride a bike Huh just remembered that

Upstate NY we had an aunt & uncle that lived WAY up there so when we visited them we'd go into Canada too I got my love for rural living from those visits and another aunt & uncle that had a farm in CT Wash Rinse Repeat took my kids to the same areas but ventured out on trips on Long Island Amish Country in PA and of course WDW Guess we really do what we learn as kids Only difference is my kids didn't have a backwards view in the rear of a station wagon I did take a cross country trip at 17 y/o and years later my eldest did the same exact thing

Another trip report very much enjoyed

 

[mvf-m11c]

I can't believe I forgot about your trip report and I finally able to catch up to it. I have enjoyed reading your road trip. After reading yours and PiO's road trip reports, i will have to do it one day. Your pictures are very nice and the food porn looks great at all these different places.

I enjoyed reading your trip report Alison.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Great wrap-up Alison.

I think the national parks and great outdoor spaces in the US are fantastic. Glad to see that you thought the same as me......lots of international travellers in those places but not that many locals.

Thanks for a fantastic road trip.

 

[disney ny]

So much fun to read your trip report. It is really neat to read about places other than WDW sometimes and I always enjoy your adventures. I'm all caught up on your reports now!

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

Normally I don’t do a “recap” post, but that’s because many of my trip reports are for WDW, and I would probably be saying the same things. Loved the Villa, went on a lot of rides, ate at some great places, yada, yada, yada, but this was a very different trip than a WDW vacay so here are some of my thoughts.

And I really appreciate you writing this one up; you've helped with my planning for sure.

I thought that we picked a good length of time for the overall trip. I think we spent the right amount of time at the main destinations of the trip. Had our tours at MV not been cancelled due to inclement weather, we would not have had so much idle time. Three days was perfect.

My parents just spent some time out west, including MV. It was fun seeing some of the same places in the pictures.

This helped out quite a bit with the loading in and out every day, but we still had an excessive amount of unnecessary stuff. I'm not sure what I can do about that.

On this trip we stayed at several different styles of hotels. The casinos were what we expected. The View Hotel was a great place to stay and we would do it again. While I enjoyed the Bryce Canyon Lodge, I might be just as happy staying at another location next time.

Not that there are a lot of choices in that area.

The free breakfast at the Hampton is better than the paid option at the Hilton Garden and heck you can't beat "make 'em yourself waffles"!

We always gravitate towards Holiday Inn Express because of the cinnamon rolls.

I think we did pretty good and I didn’t gain any weight. On this trip.

Something tells me I may not be so lucky.

It struck both Fran and I as odd that the majority of folks traveling through some of the wonders of the United States were not residents of the United States. Clearly, I think Americans need to get out more!

This makes me a little sad. Not that we don't welcome foreign visitors, but that Americans aren't taking more advantage of these places.

Some of the TRs that I have been reading, (mostly Captain Oblivious, but I think a few others like Leshaface’s and I’m not sure how many others) have talked about family vacations as kids.

It wasn't meant to make anyone feel bad or somehow left out. I just like to wrap things up with an explanation of why we do all this crazy stuff!

Mine were pretty much that my parents farmed us out to our grandparents in New England. My grandparents lived in Boston, the suburbs, Newton Center for anyone who knows the area. We could easily walk to the street car and many of our early vacations included Quincy Market and other Bicentennial areas, as the Bicentennial was big on people’s minds back then.

Boston has a lot of cool stuff to see!

Though I don’t have kids, I am trying to see as much of the world that I haven’t seen yet, while still working in annual trips to WDW. There’s a lot of places on that list, so I better get busy!

From your post on the other TR, it sounds like you already are busy!

Thanks again for taking us along on the trip!

Mark, a.k.a. Captain Oblivious, can you post your link here or send me a PM when you start your TR, so I can follow along.. Please and thank you!

Sure! It'll most likely be on this "California & the West" board. Thanks in advance!

 

[Leshaface]

I haven't found a dealer who cares about having the card out and at the table. I think if you were hiding it underneath the table it might be worse as they would think you were up to something. They sell them at the gift shop so obviously the casinos condone it. I've even had a dealer or two ask after a hand, "What did your little card say to do then?"

It's really great because it tells you when to split, double down, or whatever. There are some instance where you wouldn't think to stay, like when you have a 12, but the dealer is showing a four or a five. Odds are he/she has a 10 card underneath and has to hit (casino rules) and the odds are he'll get a 10 card and bust. I just keep looking at my little card (unless I already have it memorized, like stay on 17 or better, and always split Aces and 8s).

When we were at a table at the Bellagio, I had pulled my phone out while sitting at the table and the dealer immediately (but nicely) said no phones at the tables, so I figured you couldn't have anything out with you. But like you said, if they sell them in the shops, why couldn't you use them at the table? Especially out for the dealer to see.

I need to remember that about 17. I was thinking 18 for some reason.

That's sweet of you to offer. I wish you guys still lived behind Staples, we would totally be neighbors! It's nice to have family and friends local to take care of your critters. We have so few friends in Long Beach, everyone is so spread out here that most people require half an hour to 2 hours drive to get together. That's why we mostly only see our friends on Tuesday night at band.

So I told you that we took Percy over to my mom's house, so my DB could could go over and let her dogs and Percy inside and out of the house, refill water and food, etc. Well, he didn't tell us until we got back late Sunday, that one of his little dogs got loose on 4th of July. They found her on Mooney blvd and was hit by a car I feel terrible, he was making sure our dogs were okay, and here, his poor little dog got killed.



Loved your re-cap! It's fun reading TR's other than Disney sometimes. It's like, wait, there are other places to go other than WDW or DLR!?

I think you're scratching a lot of your 'Destinations' list I'll definitely be around to read all those TR's

 

[franandaj]

Thank you so much for sharing. I thoroughly enjoyed reading along.

Corinna

You're welcome!

Great wrap up Alison! I'm a lucky one where my parents believed in family vacations and took my brother and I all over the West and South on family vacations. As teachers, they made sure we used the trips as learning experiences as well as fun. Those trips have really made my life richer and unleashed my inner travel bug....3 continents down, and 4 to go!

Jill in CO

That's really cool. As I said, we saw lots of our Nation's Birthplace and I felt really lucky to know so much about Boston and the history there, but I sort of grew up thinking that there wasn't much else to see in the country.

Kolob Canyons –
Toquerville. – What can I say?
The pictures are lovely…
I would have picked a Hilton hotel also… You know we are all HHonors people hahaha
Sorry about Pepper, hope it is doing better, so the sitter had no idea the cat had been gone all week?
Hope Fran is feeling better too, I hate feeling bad, when I am away from home. It just seems to be worse.

Thanks for reading along. Yes, she is better, almost killing me better!

Thanks for taking us along with you and Fran It was a terrific trip I think you're right about us here in the USA we need to see more of our country When I was a kid we had our family vacations but we stayed pretty much in the same areas NY, NJ, CT Had a summer rental every year in NJ Actually it's the place I learned to ride a bike Huh just remembered that

Upstate NY we had an aunt & uncle that lived WAY up there so when we visited them we'd go into Canada too I got my love for rural living from those visits and another aunt & uncle that had a farm in CT Wash Rinse Repeat took my kids to the same areas but ventured out on trips on Long Island Amish Country in PA and of course WDW Guess we really do what we learn as kids Only difference is my kids didn't have a backwards view in the rear of a station wagon I did take a cross country trip at 17 y/o and years later my eldest did the same exact thing

Another trip report very much enjoyed

Yeah, I did get to upstate NY a couple time. Relatives up there. I still have a whole lot of places to add to my list of visits. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I can't believe I forgot about your trip report and I finally able to catch up to it. I have enjoyed reading your road trip. After reading yours and PiO's road trip reports, i will have to do it one day. Your pictures are very nice and the food porn looks great at all these different places.

I enjoyed reading your trip report Alison.

No problem, it's always going to be here. It is a nice part of the country to visit. Very pretty.

Great wrap-up Alison.

I think the national parks and great outdoor spaces in the US are fantastic. Glad to see that you thought the same as me......lots of international travellers in those places but not that many locals.

Thanks for a fantastic road trip.

Thanks, strange that US folks don't get out and see their own natural beauty.

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

So much fun to read your trip report. It is really neat to read about places other than WDW sometimes and I always enjoy your adventures. I'm all caught up on your reports now!

Thank you. Maybe you can get your husband to come here, although no golf courses.

And I really appreciate you writing this one up; you've helped with my planning for sure.

I'm glad I could help!

My parents just spent some time out west, including MV. It was fun seeing some of the same places in the pictures.

That's cool. Mine didn't start doing stuff until after I had graduated college.

Not that there are a lot of choices in that area.

I'll be anxious to hear about your stay. I think that would be my next choice. BTW which of the two are you staying in? Isn't your trip almost here?

We always gravitate towards Holiday Inn Express because of the cinnamon rolls.

Hmmmmm Never had those....sounds good.

Something tells me I may not be so lucky.

You also have slaves, er I mean kids, to help you do the schlepping in and out of the hotels.

This makes me a little sad. Not that we don't welcome foreign visitors, but that Americans aren't taking more advantage of these places.

Well your family is making up for them!

It wasn't meant to make anyone feel bad or somehow left out. I just like to wrap things up with an explanation of why we do all this crazy stuff!

It didn't make me feel bad, it just made me realize how different families are. Though I'm not saying my parents didn't love me, I just think they like me a whole lot more now that we can sit down over a glass of wine at meal I prepared them. I remember when swim team was on break and my mom used to say to me, "I'll be happy when workouts start again so you have something to do with all this energy."

Boston has a lot of cool stuff to see!

It sure does, I didn't think there was anyplace else you needed to visit as a kid.

From your post on the other TR, it sounds like you already are busy!

Thanks again for taking us along on the trip!

Sure! It'll most likely be on this "California & the West" board. Thanks in advance!

I hope it's a relaxing busy! I'll definitely be over there when you post it. Have a great trip!

 

[franandaj]

When we were at a table at the Bellagio, I had pulled my phone out while sitting at the table and the dealer immediately (but nicely) said no phones at the tables, so I figured you couldn't have anything out with you. But like you said, if they sell them in the shops, why couldn't you use them at the table? Especially out for the dealer to see.

I need to remember that about 17. I was thinking 18 for some reason.

Phones, cameras, any electronic device is prohibited, you could do surveillance or be working with someone else. The little card is no big deal.

So I told you that we took Percy over to my mom's house, so my DB could could go over and let her dogs and Percy inside and out of the house, refill water and food, etc. Well, he didn't tell us until we got back late Sunday, that one of his little dogs got loose on 4th of July. They found her on Mooney blvd and was hit by a car I feel terrible, he was making sure our dogs were okay, and here, his poor little dog got killed.

That's awful. I worry about that in this new house. Bellflower is as busy (if not more) than Mooney and it's just behind our house. Hopefully the cats won't try and climb the 14 ft. walls or go out in the front yard and wander down the path next to our house out to the street. I hope our yard is interesting enough to them.

Loved your re-cap! It's fun reading TR's other than Disney sometimes. It's like, wait, there are other places to go other than WDW or DLR!?

I think you're scratching a lot of your 'Destinations' list I'll definitely be around to read all those TR's

Thanks! Fran hates the DIS and likes it at the same time. While it's a big time sucker, I don't ambush our friends when they come to the house to look at photo albums of our trips anymore. You guys look at them and that makes me happy!

Hopefully on the list (but not booked yet) are DLP, along with other places in France, a Mississippi River boat cruise, a Panama Canal Cruise, and an Alaskan DCL. Also while the Gay Games are in Cleveland this year in 2018 they are in Paris, so we'll be going back there twice in the next five years!

Those are only the things on the schedule (plus at least one trip to WDW each year). And I booked my 50th birthday party in a Grand Villa! So I'm taking reservations for whoever wants to come to that. It's a three day long celebration the first weekend in May next year culminating with a party at Casa Nueva, so get your requests in soon! I'm serious. DIS friends are invited, but you're responsible for getting here. If you make it I'll see about how to put you up. Oh, but only folks over 18. This will be a very adult celebration, no nudity or other stuff, but probably lots of fine dining and wine and cocktails involved. We wouldn't want anyone to have to look after kids. I'm not sure what to do with my sister. She has to bring her kids and after her performance at my wedding. Well we'll just leave it at that!

 

[ACDSNY]

I loved the pics of Bryce and Zion, someday I hope to see them for myself. The dusting of snow was beautiful.

 

[Leshaface]

That's awful. I worry about that in this new house. Bellflower is as busy (if not more) than Mooney and it's just behind our house. Hopefully the cats won't try and climb the 14 ft. walls or go out in the front yard and wander down the path next to our house out to the street. I hope our yard is interesting enough to them.

I'm pretty sure Bellflower is much busier than Mooney Hopefully they stick to just your house. But they are pretty much mostly indoors aren't they?

Thanks! Fran hates the DIS and likes it at the same time. While it's a big time sucker, I don't ambush our friends when they come to the house to look at photo albums of our trips anymore. You guys look at them and that makes me happy!

Hopefully on the list (but not booked yet) are DLP, along with other places in France, a Mississippi River boat cruise, a Panama Canal Cruise, and an Alaskan DCL. Also while the Gay Games are in Cleveland this year in 2018 they are in Paris, so we'll be going back there twice in the next five years!

Those are only the things on the schedule (plus at least one trip to WDW each year). And I booked my 50th birthday party in a Grand Villa! So I'm taking reservations for whoever wants to come to that. It's a three day long celebration the first weekend in May next year culminating with a party at Casa Nueva, so get your requests in soon! I'm serious. DIS friends are invited, but you're responsible for getting here. If you make it I'll see about how to put you up. Oh, but only folks over 18. This will be a very adult celebration, no nudity or other stuff, but probably lots of fine dining and wine and cocktails involved. We wouldn't want anyone to have to look after kids. I'm not sure what to do with my sister. She has to bring her kids and after her performance at my wedding. Well we'll just leave it at that!

Are you kidding me with this travel schedule!?! Aren't you guys going on a Pacific Cruise too, next October? I thought Pam said you guys were going...Because we were trying to find a cruise that we had booked a dummy on back in Dec 2011 (wow that's so long ago!) and DH has a week off in October. We're trying to see when that week off would be.

So you did get the Villa?! AWESOME! I wasn't sure if you were just thinking about it and playing around with the idea or what. How many people are on your for sure list? Maybe I convince DH to stay at home and watch DS I need a break from the two of them anyway.

PS. Don't tell him I said that

 

[scottny]

Chili’s looked good.
The size of that first margarita. Oh my!
The 2nd one is not too shabby either.
Too bad Fran was not feeling well.
Sad about your cat but glad was okay. I would fire the sitter too.
It was a great recap and a wonderful tr to read.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[franandaj]

I loved the pics of Bryce and Zion, someday I hope to see them for myself. The dusting of snow was beautiful.

I hope you can see them for yourself one day. Both are incredibly beautiful. We are going to go back to Zion and do the tour part we missed.

I'm pretty sure Bellflower is much busier than Mooney Hopefully they stick to just your house. But they are pretty much mostly indoors aren't they?

You've seen them and yes we keep them indoors right now. We want to let some outdoors, Olga is OK, and Milo is going nuts, but we have to watch him. He wants to go next door and leave the yard. We'll let him go out, but he needs to prove he will stay in the yard.

Are you kidding me with this travel schedule!?! Aren't you guys going on a Pacific Cruise too, next October? I thought Pam said you guys were going...Because we were trying to find a cruise that we had booked a dummy on back in Dec 2011 (wow that's so long ago!) and DH has a week off in October. We're trying to see when that week off would be.

We're on the cruise with Jenny and Pam in Oct 2015, we need to link our reservations so we can all sit together. That will be so much fun!

So you did get the Villa?! AWESOME! I wasn't sure if you were just thinking about it and playing around with the idea or what. How many people are on your for sure list? Maybe I convince DH to stay at home and watch DS I need a break from the two of them anyway.

PS. Don't tell him I said that

Yes I have the Villa reserved and Jill has already said she wants to come. So has Jenny, but she's not sure with family stuff, I've also brought it up to local 3D friends and you and your DH. I still have to hear from my sister on her commitment. I suppose if she doesn't want it if someone wants to rent the points that's cool, but I need to know ASAP because we want to make a reservation for the 60th anniversary and that's coming up at the 11th month.

Based on our recent meet, sounds like he wants to come too!

Chili’s looked good.
The size of that first margarita. Oh my!
The 2nd one is not too shabby either.
Too bad Fran was not feeling well.
Sad about your cat but glad was okay. I would fire the sitter too.
It was a great recap and a wonderful tr to read.
Thanks for sharing.

Thanks! Yeah, the cat sitter has been replaced. Our new one is definitely better, and thank goodness when we take him and his partner to WDW next April we have another replacement while they are gone!

 

[franandaj]

So you can consider this like a bonus track on a CD (remember those? If you bought the CD instead of the record album, there were additional songs that weren’t on the vinyl recording). It’s not part of the Southwestern Roadtrip, but we were barely recovered from that trip when we up and pulled off another one.

If you recall, we arrived home Sunday afternoon, Mother’s day, I think it was and Fran was recovering from ickiness. (That’s a clinical term in case you didn’t know.) Since no one needs a week to recover, we thought that planning another event out of town the following weekend would be a good idea. (Not really but it was one of those things that comes along that us being huge Disney fans couldn’t pass up.)

Back in March, Fran had seen a post on the D23 Sorcerer’s Facebook page about a benefit for the Cartoon Museum of San Francisco which was being held at Pixar Studios. The event was from 2PM until 8PM that Saturday after we got back from the road trip. For those of you who don’t know, my parents live in the SF Bay Area (I grew up in the South Bay) and their house is less than an hour from Pixar studios (without traffic, same rules in LA apply only slightly less severe).

Flights from the LA area to the Bay area are fairly cheap, and we were able to work out an easy little overnight trip which included the tour and a stay with my parents. So Saturday morning we headed off to John Wayne Airport around 8AM. Parking and check in were a breeze and soon we were on our 11AM Southwest flight to Oakland. The plane was full. Totally full. There was ONE empty seat on the plane, and that was between Fran and I!

We used the “two economy sized people in the last row of the plane will not be appealing for anyone to sit with us” rationale and it worked. By 1PM we were on our in our rental car to Pixar Studios. Not knowing a thing about the event we grabbed ourselves some Taco Bell and ate it in the car on the way to find the place. I can tell you this, John Lasseter must have got a great deal on the land for this place because it’s not in the part of town you want to be in after dark. But they have iron fences all around the place and they are very very tall. For a good reason.

Here it is!



We checked in with the guard, who found our name on “the list” and let us in to park. The first place that we went was the Steve Jobs building. We took some great pictures outside that building and of that building, but we used Fran’s camera. Which she lost in the move. We’ll find it eventually but for now, I got nothing.

I was in such awe of the place I didn’t get very good documentation pictures.





Upon entering this is what we saw.





The first place that we went was the store (go figure right?).



There was a line because it was very small. As some people left, they let others in.



There is this big open area in the middle of the building and the Café Luxo is right off the open space.







After we scored our loot. Sorry no pictures it was too long ago, but let’s just say it didn’t all fit in the trunk of our midsize car. We even had to leave a couple things at my parent’s house, but we did end up getting most of it into our suitcases. It didn’t hurt that I got an MU backpack and we filled that and used it as a carry on. We only came up with 1 small suitcase, my purse and my CPAP, so the backpack worked as the last carry on in our allotment for the trip home.

Back to the studio. We stashed our loot in the car and explored the building. On the first floor we were allowed to take pictures of anything we wanted. The second floor, no photography was allowed. In the lobby was a case with trophies and accolades. What I deduced from this case, is that if you are an animated pictures studio, you don’t want to release a film in the same year that a Pixar animated feature is released.





In that same case they had this Woody Doll. The letter was so cute, it came from City Hall at MK. It reads,

Dear John Lasseter,
On June 18, 2010 we had a young child about 6 years old by the name of Caleb come into City Hall at Magic Kingdom Park. He brought us his well played with Woody Doll. You see his parents bought him a new one and he wanted his first one to have a great new home, so he left it here to spend infinity and beyond with Buzz Lightyear. We felt it was appropriate to share him with you. As you can see he has been loved very much over the years. Thank you for giving everyone great characters that have heart.

Sincerely,

Magic Kingdom Guest Relations Cast



We really had no need to stop at Taco Bell. For the price that we paid for this event, we should have known that there would have been some food. And so you don’t think they fed us only cookies and MnM’s, there was cheese, pretzels, grapes, popcorn, fruit and hummus too.



I couldn’t get over the Luxo Café and kept taking pictures of it.







The rest rooms had these really cute characters depicting “men” and “women”.





I thought this was a neat touch at the coffee dispensers.



All around the room were photo opportunities.







This was one of the murals on one of the walls.



[Continued in Next Post]

 

[franandaj]

[Continued from Previous Post]

Then we went upstairs to look around. We didn’t get very far. One of the artists was giving drawing workshops in one of the rooms and we sat in there to watch. Throughout the first part of the afternoon he must have drawn at least five different sets of characters. It was almost time that we were to head into the Steve Jobs theater for the feature presentation.



OK, I finally got a picture of how large and light the room was while we were waiting to go inside.





Once inside the theater they were showing some funny art on the Incredibles. The whole presentation was on creating the Incredibles and they had reassembled the team who worked on it to talk about what they did and some of the groundbreaking procedures that they had created.

None of my pictures really came out (using the P&S instead of the real camera), plus once the presentation started they asked us put all devices away. I’ll try and remember some of the larger points that they talked about.

Now I’m sure most of you know about storyboarding and what that is. The Producers and Directors of the film pitch it to the network executives via storyboards, and while the details cards depicting each part of the scene can be very descriptive, it still leaves a lot up to the imagination of the executive.

The guys working on the Incredibles had been working on another project together with another studio, I think it was Warner Bros, and he had this idea for the Incredibles, but he never actually “let go” of the idea to the studio so when he left there for Pixar, he was able to bring the idea along with most of his team. One thing that he had been able to work out with his guys was an extreme command of CGI in the raw state.

I’m not sure if this will make any sense, but instead of having to look at small postcard sized storyboards, one of the guys on the team specialized in animating still drawings. They played an example of how they pitched one of the scenes to the executives. There is a scene on the island where Dash is running from the bad guys, they took an image like this, and with simple line drawings demonstrated how Dash would out run the bad guys, and they were able to indicate all the “gags” that they had planned without taking the scene to full animation.



Another tool that they developed was a graphic interface that allowed the director to “write” on the screen to indicate his changes to the characters and animation. Often times when designing the characters, animators would not make a jaw pronounced enough or the angle that the “camera” was shooting from would not provide enough contrast or comic relief. The program that they designed allowed the director to draw a line on the screen (remember this was over 10 years ago and iPads were not commonplace yet) to indicate how the curve of the drawing should be.

This allowed much more streamlined communication of the director’s thoughts and ideas, and sped up the animation process in that the animators were not constantly going back to the drawing board.

They talked about a number of other concepts and stories of how different parts of the movie came to be and the ending was the biggest part they talked about. They needed some way for the family to get back home from the island. They wanted it to be comical but yet believeable. They came up with the ridiculous idea of the RV transporting them with Mom being the one to save the day (holding the RV with her elasticity). Because in real life, Mom always does save the day.

The scene at the end when they are fighting the great big monster ball is further enhanced with comic relief in that it is controlled by a remote. What is one of the biggest points of contention in any family home? Who gets control of the remote! So they have taken basic family premises and put them at the core of the problem to create humor and understanding.

To round off the presentation they let us watch the rough animation of the last scene and then the fully animated version. To add further comic relief, the producer or director said a quick goodbye as the film started because the Emcee of the event had promised the guy’s wife that he would make the dinner party she had been planning prior to this event being scheduled. He was only allowed to attend if they could guarantee that he would be out of there at 5:30 and able to make the commitment he had made to his wife!

After the presentation, we left the Steve Jobs building for another building where the evening would wrap up. But first I snapped a few more shots from the Steve Jobs building.





Then we headed over. The campus is just so open and beautiful.





This guy was looking out over the top of the building to where we were headed.









This was in the entry of the building where we spent the evening.



Also in the entry.





They had this buffet set up for us. They didn’t call it dinner, but it certainly worked well for that purpose.



We ate our food in this area near these two kitchens that probably operate during the regular worktime for the employees.





Some of the food that they served us. I think it’s pretty obvious, but the beef kebabs were Filet Mignon, the chicken was some sort of Tandoori. There was a whole Antipasto plate of cheeses and meats, with Cornichons and Artichoke Hearts.





Later they put out these little sliders and Asparagus with Hollandaise.



[Continued in Next Post]

 

[franandaj]

[Continued from Previous Post]



After we ate, I walked around the ground floor. They were hosting an auction of various pieces created just for this event along with other items that were donated by Pixar Executives. Things like signed posters with the Producer, Director, and voice actors signatures on them. Most went for a pretty penny and we didn’t really participate. Which is why I was snooping around downstairs. Here’s what I came across.

A kitchen area. I’m not sure if you have heard about the cereal on Disney related campuses, but most of them have a cereal bar for the employees. I’m not sure if you can see it in the pictures.





There was a relaxing area with all these maquettes and concept artwork.

























There was this mailroom.



This was towards the back of the building near the restrooms.



Here was the area where the auction was taking place.



I know that this picture is terribly blurry and you can see that this is Woody and Buzz. I’m not sure why or who the artist was, but it sold for over $10,000! I was astonished, some of the other pieces went for $5,000 and up. There was one piece done specifically for this auction where they had Frozone and Anna on the cover of a fake comic book. There was some great unique stuff, but not in our price range.



Following the evening we had a quick drive to my parents, maybe 45 minutes and we chatted a bit before going to bed. The next morning, my mother had prepared a breakfast strata and we enjoyed a nice meal. We relaxed around the house and eventually went out for a casual lunch before Fran and I had to be back at the airport. We flew home out of San Jose which is only a few miles from their house. We were back home by 9PM and it was strange to feel like “jetsetters” for the weekend!

 

[dgbg100106]

What a wonderful experience, and love all the photos and things you got to see and enjoy!

It does not surprise me one bit that you had to leave stuff at your parents. Glad you both found some amazing things to pick up

 

[jedijill]

What a great experience! You are so lucky to live close to be able to participate in such unique experiences!

Jill in CO

 

[Misskitty3]

What a cool event! And even better that it was an easy and quick trip up and back! Pixar looks like a really neat place to work......

 

[dolphingirl47]

What amazing event.

Corinna

 

[Luvchefmic]

I live on the wrong coast especially for your 50 th BD

My favorite picture is Rhemy in the glass jar and your reflection Looks like he is looking right at you, " Please, please, let me out" What a place that Pixar is