5000th Post

Believe it or not, today marks the 5000th post for GDB. Five thousand! That feels like a significant number worth celebrating. Some of you may recall that my original goal was to somehow reach 1000 posts (that happened on April 8, 2009) at which point I would retire to my private island. But things don't always go according to plan.

I continued to acquire slides, and the contributions of some GDB readers (thanks to all of those folks) helped so much. And now it's been over 13 years - the last 10 without missing a single day.

Let's start with one that I have been saving for a while - the true FINAL photo from Fun Dad, circa August, 1967! And ain't she a beauty? Looks like folks who parked on the western edge of the parking lot are trudging toward the ticket booths & turnstiles, while Monorail Blue passes overhead (Monorail Gold can be seen in the distance).

Colorful floral prints were in style in '67! Just right of center you can see the white cone roof of the"Melodyland" theater. A nice selection of attraction posters are framed on the columns supporting the Monorail beamway, including one for Tom Sawyer Island, The Autopia, Nature's Wonderland, Pirates of the Caribbean (only a few months old), and Peter Pan's Flight.

Speaking of turnstiles, here they are, circa 1961. Where is everybody? There's something so cheerful and welcoming about the oval letters spelling out D-I-S-N-E-Y-L-A-N-D, along with those waving colorful pennants. 

This next shot is just very pretty - a view of Main Street USA from 1964; September 24th if you must know. And because I have "Jason's Disneyland Almanac" handy, I want to give you some fun facts. The 24th was a Thursday, and the park was open from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. The high temp of the day was 87 degrees (September in SoCal, folks), and the attendance was (wait for it)... 5,711. Not even 6000 people! 

The photo was taken at twilight, when all the sexy vampires emerge from their graves! No doubt the street looks much darker in the photo than it did to the eye (many signs are not yet lit), but that's OK. I still love the warm glow of the Eastman Kodak shop's sign. The banner at the end of the street tells us that DIXIELAND at DISNEYLAND would happen the next evening.

How about this postcard-worthy shot of the Space Bar (from July of 1958)? What a wonderful piece of mid-century design. And once again, the lack of crowds is astonishing.

Let's get up in the air, aboard the good old Skyway (circa 1957)! Our gondola is heading toward the Tomorrowland Terminal. For some reason the colors of the gondolas used at this point appeal to me - lemon yellow, metallic green and blue, vivid orange, silver, gold, and so on. There's the earlier iteration of the Space Bar, and below us in the track (and part of the station) for the Viewliner. That field in the distance just beyond the borders of the park looks like its being graded for development. 

From 1956 comes this Skyway view looking down on what I've been told was "Tomorrowland Lake", where the Phantom Boats (aka "Tomorrowland Boats") plied the waters - when they weren't conking out. This photo is fascinating!

Zooming in to see the boats a bit better, I also notice a Market Basket market in the upper left. 

Well, that does it for today, homies. I would like to thank all of you for your friendship and support over the years; I am grateful for the nice community that has developed. The lack of trolls and weirdos is kind of a miracle in this day and age. At this point I have about two more full boxes of slides to go - around 1,200 images. That should keep me going for another year or two. I've been considering photographing and sharing photos of some of my assorted dumb collections (the non-Disney stuff), maybe I'll do a few test posts and see how those go. I've got a lot of junk! But some of it might be fun for you to look at.

Tomorrow... post 5001!