Go West Young (Wo)Man!

The month of August was a VERY busy travel month. I may post about it. I HOPE to post about it. In the meantime, here's the flickr pics of the drive I took across the country with my sis as we ventured from her place in Chicago back to my place in California. Peep them here.

Carolwood Foundation: Riding the rails!

Me, in the Combine


Passengers on the Combine


Jeff in the baggage section of the Combine - that's where we took our first ride!


This train carries some dangerous freight!


Train pulling in.


Train leaving the station! All aboard!


All together now! The cars from the original train hooked up (minus the 'Belle).


Taking a curve on the train!*
*This was a special treat! We hadn't thought we'd be allowed to ride the trains once they were hooked up but, the engineers assured us we could! Everyone filled the last three cars and we took a single spin 'round the property. Such a great way to end the day!


Fill 'er up!


Roger Colton conducts us to our seats.



To see the entire photo album, peep them on my Flickr page.

Carolwood Foundation: Riding the Retlaw 1

Also in May, Jeff and I took a trip with the Carolwood Foundation to ride the Original Disneyland and Santa Fe Combine - a part of Disneyland's original railroad!

The trip started in Oakland where Jeff and Mr. Floyd Norman were the 'guests of honor' on this leg of the trip. Animation (and Disney) Legend, Floyd Norman gave a great talk about working for Walt Disney as we chugged our way down to San Luis Obispo.



That evening, Floyd, Jeff, Tony Baxter and Ray Cadd gave a great talk called "Story is King: The Magic of Disney Storytelling". Jeff and Floyd focused on story in film and Tony and Ray focused on Story in the theme parks. Fantastic stuff!

To help raise funds for the Combine (for more info on that, check out Carolwood's website) - they had a auction. I love auctions! I love helping with auctions!


Bookends that used to belong to Walt.




Oh, I wanted this poster!



The next day we all arrived at Santa Margarita Ranch in order to ride the rails ALL Day!





Lunch was a BBQ on the ranch. Yum! And then we had MORE rail fun. I'll post additional pics of that later.

Paris: Day 2 pt. 3

Off to the main event!



I know I took pictures of "Winged Victory" and the "Venus" but, I can't find them...I'll post those when I scrounge them up!

After this, we were done with the Louvre and I had a major headache! We decided to trudge up the Rue St. Honore for a coffee break.


The prettiest and tastiest iced coffee ever! From Cafe Verlet.

Off we trudge, realizing that Rue St. Honore turns into Faubourg St. Honore! We trekked quite some time and saw such marvelous sights!






Until we reached...

Pilgrimage to Disneyland

Every year, I try to get to "The Happiest Place on Earth" at least ONCE. So far, this year, I've been once - in March. D23 had a lovely first year anniversary party and a pal of mine and I ventured forth. The party was held 'after hours' for D23 members but, my pal and I arrived before they booted everyone out in order to ride some rides and play. The only place we avoided was Fantasyland, as we'd have the run of the place during the party!