I was informed quite emphatically that she, The Wine Lady, is the personal rep and saleschick to the Chef and Sommelier of Artist Point as a heavy distributor of Willamette Valley Vineyards located a few miles from my house. Not a small portion of those bottled grapes come from my own hood. Furthermore, she was pretty sure she could get a comped meal for us there with a phone call.
A phone call that never happened. But we’ll get to that….
D'oh! C'mon, Wine Lady, a little help here!
I guess for me, going to Disney is all about visiting “exotic” new decors, themes, and menus. I want to be immersed in "somewhere else". Wilderness Lodge, a Disneyfied copycat of Timberline Lodge, just wasn’t high on the list.
This is how I feel about the Boardwalk/Yacht/Beach Club area. Whereas Wilderness Lodge feels really exotic to me!
A free meal?
Sign me up.
I’ve said it many multiple times before on this and other TRs: Free is good; free with chocolate is better.
Well said.
Cool shot!
If you’ve not visited the PNW, please do so soon. You won’t be sorry.
I'm coming, I promise! 2019!
Really, it is a very lovely resort it is an awesome resort, even if very familiar to those of us from the PNW.
Fixed it for you.
(You did see the Hidden Mickeys in those last 2 pix, right?)
Thank you for enabling my irresponsible behavior, Alison!
She's awfully good at that!
No photo... use our imagination to conjure up a..... steak.
YES! Gladly.
Sorry, zoned out there for a few minutes.
I could swim in that soup with my mouth open and be a very happy woman.
Now there's a picture.
And I'm out.
We consistently fight over how our steak is prepared, and this time Mr. McWrecktheSteak won- medium. In Steppe’s nomenclature, that simply means burnt. Or destroyed. So, basically it was a well-seasoned hunk of leather.
Wow, that's awfully harsh! If you want to bite a live cow, just say so. Personally, I like medium. But I'm not a vampire.
I’m sure she made a phone call to someone after I spoke with her the 2nd time and confirmed we weren’t just blowing smoke, which is a prudent managerial thing to do.
Man, security at this place is tight.
Here is a sneak preview of what went down... if you don't know who these folks are, please engage your fingers in a Google search immediately.
I had to Google. Sounds like a cool meet!
On top of that, I'm running into huge frustrations with getting the vaccinations we'll need for the work we'd wanted to do. Because of that we'll likely be going with Plan B and doing a Health Education Clinic teaching prenatal care, safe water handling/disinfection, hand hygiene and possibly a soap making workshop as a way to encourage that as well as providing a secondary benefit of providing a marketable skill to economically empower women.
Dang. Sorry it's not going as you'd hoped/planned.
I was standing on the bow trying to get some night photos of the other resorts and noticed a gigantic, full orange moon was just rising alongside the Contemp. It was spectacular and beautiful. And too far away for a shot worth getting with my regular stock lens. And it was dark. And I was on a moving boat. So this was one of those times when it was completely appropriate to just... enjoy. I was not the only guest who noticed and it would be fair to say that the moon captivated our attention as easily as fireworks over the castle.
Sounds wonderful!
Are you excited? Are you ready? Ready to see some up close and personal photos of the Savanah Birds and Beasties?
But, if I promise a bonus point to anyone who tells me how many animal photos are in this chapter in your comment will you come back?
So do you mean animals alone, or any photo with an animal in it?
YAY! I know some of you are all about cheap thrills!
Look, you can just tag me if you want to mention me.
I wish either of the two crappy photos I took of her would allow me to decipher her name- the best I can do is “Applesauce”. If you have a better guess, by all means rename her. Her smile defined her and my dream to visit Africa was cemented forever.
I'm going to go with Sheena, Queen of the West.
(Guess who's going to Africa in November?)
Your daughter!
I wanted to take her home to replace the current progeny gifted to me… which seem to have contracted mild cases of Teenage Mouth. I’m sure there’s a cure, but I have yet to find it.
I'm sorry. Would you like to borrow my taser?
We were allowed to do anything but touch or feed the animals, even though, we were told, we would be close enough at times to do exactly that.
Wow! Hey, mind if I shoot this gun back here?
It was also explained to us that most people think that the AK animals and AKL animals all make up just one big zoo. Nope! There are, in fact, 2 separate zoos at Disney (even though neither of them want to be publicized as such). They technically operate as completely separate entities with completely different breeding programs, management strategies, etc… If AK needs a temporary home for one of its animals, for example, they must actually apply for relocation privileges at AKL- either at Jambo or Kidani.
I had no idea. That's fascinating! I had no idea there were two separate zebra species, either.
We should take a lesson from the Savanah. Obviously, it's possible for different fur colors and shapes and sizes to get along quite peacefully.
In the spirit of the internet, I will refuse to believe this statement, even though you provided photographic proof.
I see a Hidden Mickey!
My sincere apologies to those of you who find updates dull without some iteration of exploding helicopters.
Hey! I can't help it. Exploding helicopters are the bacon of the literary world.
Putting a giraffe onto a chopper and having it explode is about as inconceivable as a Disney bus arriving within 23 minutes of my getting to a bus stop.
Like Andy said, nobody wants to do that to a giraffe. You might want to do it to the bus after waiting that long, though.
I'm always happy to endorse irresponsible behavior when it comes to alcohol!
Lovely image.
It's all coming together and I'm now just over the halfway point of raising the $2,000 needed to get myself there; much of that coming from DISFriends like you!! Now... to develop the curricula for seminars on hand hygiene, basic first aid, water purification using low-tech methods, and prenatal and infant care.
