Before anything else, so very sorry to hear about the loss of Schooner. The fact that he was part of your seflie practice I'm sure made him very proud and is a very fitting tribute.
Yes, despite the fact that most of the FP selections in Epcot fail to really interest me and I would probably pick Maelstrom anyway, seeing it one more time is a must.
Hahahaha, love the CM encounter. Just great!
Ooh your inside Mexico shorts turned out really good. That's a tough spot.
Awwww, I honestly though you might watch the movie. But I guess a tribute to Maelstrom in incomplete until your skip the movie. (And by the way, I am totally keeping that line for my own TR, lol).
Thank you for the kind words!
Schooner was pretty well known in the community, as lots of people come to the farm for tours of the house, festivals, school trips, old-fashioned baseball and just to walk their dogs and hang around. He will be missed by many.
I think he was actually a little embarrassed by his inclusion in my selfie practice- he was hiding his face with a mask.
It was a quick, but fun, CM encounter.
I was pleased with the Mexico pictures. I try to take them every trip, but this time I actually got to stop while taking the picture since I was alone.
Completely traditional tribute to the ride in Norway- sans movie.
Dee sorry to hear about Schooner.
Hope Mark feels better soon.
Thank you!
Mark was sore over the weekend, and his lips are still sensitive, but he is mostly back to normal.
Nice pictures with your big girl camera, Dee.
I'm with you...love the Mexican pavilion.
I am so glad we got one last ride in on Maelstrom too. Although not a favorite attraction by any means, it will be sad to see it go (too much change in too short of a time). We were going to actually sit and watch the film but it wasn't showing that day.
Sorry you just missed the film in China.
Oooh...where do you end up next unexpectedly?
Thank you- the outdoor pictures are coming out much better than the indoor ones, but I was really happy with the ones inside of Mexico.
One more Viking ride!
Soon you will see where I stopped unexpectedly (Lisa/Mickeystoontown may be able to guess it...)
I too am sorry to hear about the passing of Schooner. I will now tell you about my history with horses to cheer you up!
This is a true story.
My Aunt Vicky loved to play bingo at the church. One night at dinner before going to bingo my cousin Charles (age 10) said to my Aunt Vicky "Mom, if you win the jack pot will you buy me a pony?" My Aunt said "Charles, If I win the jackpot I will buy you anything your little heart desires..."
(You see where this is going... right?)
OK so the thing to understand was that Aunt Vicky lived in the city of Philadelphia and she had a back yard but it was maybe about an acre and it was the site of a Nursery (plants and trees) business the family ran. They were near Pennypack Park however... and this park had a place where the horses were boarded.
So Aunt Vicky wins the jackpot and guess who gets an actual pony!
If you said Charles you would be correct!
So my sister and I, ages 9 and 10, go over to the house to see the pony. Yes that's right, I said the pony was at the HOUSE.
Charles, who was the devil incarnate, asked me if I wanted to get on the pony. I said heck yeah and climbed up. There I am sitting on the pony when all of a sudden I am wondering why I am FLYING up in the air toward the TREE BRANCHES!!! Charles had stuck the pony with a pin so he would buck me.
That was the end of me and horses.... or so I thought.
When I was in college I worked one summer at a Girl Scout camp that featured.... You guessed it... Horse back riding! All those 10 year old girls that were crazy about horses were in heaven and I was petrified of horses thanks to cousin Charles and his bucking pony.
When the horses were delivered to the barn we had an orientation. The barn was a 20 stall wonder with 10 stalls on each side and a narrow pathway in between. We were told that we could go in and pet the horses and give them carrots and what ever the hell else they ate.
I took one look at all those big teethed horses sticking their heads way out into the path way in the barn and I decided that I would wait until everyone else went through and then I would run around the out side of the barn to meet them at the other end. So everybody is happy to see these horses except me. I think I'm slick that I'm going to avoid all those toothy giants and get to the other side with out getting near them...
Only the other horse lovers saw me ducking out and realized that I was... shall we say not the "Horsey" type?
I got busted and they grabbed me and escorted me through twenty sets of giant teeth looking for carrots on me. After that it was the goal of all my friends who worked at the camp to get me as close to those horses as was humanly possible.
They schemed with the camp director to have my group of girls go to the field in the morning and take the horses to their freshly mucked out stalls. I had to help with all sorts of horse maintenance type tasks such as going up to a horse and convincing it that it should follow me back to the stall. Let me tell you that some of these horses had their own ideas about who was the boss and it was NOT ME!
So then my friends at the camp decide that I should learn to ride a horse. It's one thing to have to look a horse in it's GIANT teeth and convince it to follow you back to the barn but it's absolutely out of the question for me to get on one and learn to steer it!
So there I am at the end of the summer taking mandatory horse riding lessons with the youngest campers. All the newbies and me, the college age person who was the only one at this whole camp who was petrified of horses. All the little girls are in heaven that they finally get to spend time with these horses and I am trying to figure out a way just to stay alive while I am near a horse.
So the horse that they gave me to ride was this old nag named Snickers. Snickers was so over being a horse that she was almost acceptable to me. She had that air about her of "I don't give a damn." The other horses were spirited and nippy and jumpy and this horse didn't get along with that horse and there was all sorts of horse drama with 20 horses hanging around. Good old snickers just hung out until it was time to chow down back at the stall. She cared not a whit about anything... THIS was the horse for me!
So now I HAVE to take lessons with the group which involve putting the saddle on the horse (Snickers didn't care) and then getting on the horse and the doing things like getting the horse to move and then getting it to stop. Then you had to turn the thing around or go left or right.
I had NO IDEA what I was doing but here is where Good Old Snickers saved my bacon! Since this was happening at the end of the summer and Snickers had been giving kids riding lessons all summer long Snickers recognized the commands that were being given and she just did what was shouted out by the teacher! Snickers was on AUTO PILOT!
Let me tell you I was really grateful for good old Snickers. I could just get on top of her and she decided what we needed to do. That was just fine with me! Snickers was the boss I was just along for the ride. She probably thought I was an idiot and she would have been correct on that matter.
So this "horse idiot" passes all the tests and I get my beginner's horse driver's License or what ever it was they gave out to campers that finished the test.
My friends at the camp took great joy in saturating me with those horses. I pretty much told them to sleep with one eye open as I was coming for them in the early morning hours... Revenge is a dish best served cold!
So that's my horse story. It turns out that Cousin Charles' pony was one of those neighborhood ponies that got passed around from kid to kid. 'Dusty' was stabled at the park which was a quick horse ride away from my Aunt's house in the city. Most kids beg for a dog but not cousin Charles. Eventually he grew out of his cowboy phase and Dusty the pony was passed along to the next horse crazed kid. Somehow I can't imagine this is happening now with kids, with ponies being passed along to each little Dale Evans and Roy Rodgers until they got bored with the horse.
So that's my horse story. After this experience, horses and I have come to an agreement that they are the boss and I am just a package on top of them that needs to be delivered somewhere... usually whereever the horse decides.
~NM
Great story of you and Snickers and your horse history.
I would love to have pictures of you at camp with the horses.
They might make a nice greeting sign at MCO if you know what I mean!
I didn't know what to get him for a present, but he suggested "pride" because he left his on the sidewalk.
Seriously, GORGEOUS! And I love the CM gave you a high-five so cool 
