I decided to leave our car in the FW lot, and take the bus to AK. It was early afternoon, and we probably would not get a real good parking space at AK, plus we planned on returning to the Fort anyway, so we hopped the AK bus. The buses seemed to be running great on this day. We did not have a long wait on either end. For whatever reason, the Fort has the best bus stop at AK- it is the one closest to the park. Maybe it is to compensate for the fact that the AK bus also serves Blizzard Beach. But, that really isn't a big deal, as BB is close to AK, so it doesn't add much time to the trip. I would rather stop at BB than at WL, which is what happens with the Epcot and HS buses.
We stayed at AK until about 5, and then headed back to the Fort. We decided that we would eat take out from Trail's End for dinner, so when we got back to the Fort, we planned to take a bus down to the Settlement. Since I wanted to stop by the pool and 900 loop again, we would take either an orange or yellow bus, whichever came first.
While waiting for our bus, I was able to snap a few photos of the Trail Blaze Corral:
An orange bus came first. So we hopped aboard. We don't ride the buses very much, since we almost always rent a golf cart, so this was a nice change of pace. I like the fact that they now have a taped voice (that sounds like the same guy who does the monorail announcements) announcing the loops served by each bus stop. The bus is also a great place to people watch. Since the orange bus now goes through the cabin loops, you can watch both cabin people and campers. There is always something interesting to see.
When we got to the 900/1000 loop bus stop, the monorail announcer told us that this stop served Quail Trail and Raccoon Lane (the real names of the 900 and 1000 loops) and the Meadows (that is with an "s") trading post. Argggh! Is it Meadow or Meadows? Nobody seems to know. Or care. Except me. And truthfully, I don't really care very much. I just think it's interesting.
So, anyway, guess what?
I am now back at the 900 loop.
If I am recalling correctly, it is approaching 6.
The workers are long gone.
I am going to take a little walk around to see what I can see.
I can already see that I will not be the only one on the loop, as there are kids playing on the basketball court. For whatever reason, they did not block access to the 900 loop from the group camping area. So, those folks could still use the bridge that crosses into the 900 loop.
Here is what I saw . . .
This is the last inside site on the loop:
This is the last outside site- the one that is right next to the comfort station. That is the 1000 loop in the background, so you can see that there is a lot of space behind all of these outside sites, too:
Here is a closer look at Chainsaw Man's victims:
And, they had already taken a load of logs away when I first visited earlier in the day.
Continuing around the loop, we see that this light has been broken. The guys doing the work move quick, and aren't real careful:
This is one of the inside sites. You can see that there are still a lot of trees between the inside sites on the loop. This loop is still going to be nice, even after the "improvements":
900 had quite a few sites with trees growing out of the sand pads. Here is one:
This tree is surely a goner. It is still remarkable to me that the philosophy of the Fort has changed so much. Trees used to be valued so much that they would be left alone, even if they interfered with the use of a site. Now, if it is in the way, it goes, no questions asked.
Here we are, moving around towards the mid-point of the loop. This inside site is nice and deep, with lots of room on both sides:
This is site 915. We were camped right next to this site earlier this month. There were 3 or 4 trees growing in this site's sand pad. Not anymore:
This is a side view from site 914. This was our view when we camped here. Pretty nice.
This is a shot from the front of 914 looking into the loop:
Here is the utility stump on 912:
Somebody violated the hose rule, because the hose was removed!
This is the cart that we saw earlier in the day. It is now parked on the inside site across from 912:
Looks like this site has already been graded and is ready for forms. Maybe that's why the cart is parked here:
Continuing around the loop, you can see a lot of digging went on here:
This is the inside site closest to the basketball court and tetherball court. One of the timbers from the sand pad is still here:
TCD
) Trading Post to the Settlement is actually quite pleasant. It was approaching 7 pm, and I smelled all kinds of grilling going on. The walk took about 10 minutes. It ended up being a good choice, too, because I was never passed by a bus, so I would have still been waiting for that orange bus had I not decided to stroll.
