Frontierland, 1996
I'm happy to share more of Mr. X's personal photos from 1996 - a nice assortment of Frontierland scenes for your enjoyment.
Ah, Cascade Peak, we hardly knew ye. I say that phrase to a lot of inanimate objects throughout the day, and yes, I get some looks, but I gotta be me. Of course by 1996, the Mine Train had been closed for many years, but Cascade Peak was a lovely feature along the shores of the river. Those big trees threaten to swallow it, but they don't have scale, so it's all good.
I like this photo of two rafts passing each other, one heading to Tom Sawyer Island, the other coming back to civilization. At first I thought that this might have been taken from the top of a Keelboat, but upon further reflection, I now think that it was just taken from the pathway that was slightly elevated above the loading docks for the rafts and canoes.
And here we are, waiting at the landing where guests could board the Mark Twain (and the Columbia). I believe this was a former Kodak "Picture Spot", and we can see why. Who could resist taking a picture of the elegant steamboat as it returned from its trip through the wilderness?
Many thanks to Mr. X!
22 comments:
Major-
It looks like a great time to visit "the island" as the crowds look really tame.
Thanks to Mr. X.
Cascade Peak looks nice... but puny. It can't be more than 30 feet high(?). I wonder how small the mountain goats were that used to run around in circles near the top. I think I always assumed they were actual size, but they must have been quite small to keep them in scale with the Peak.
In the Raft pic, there's a lady on the Island with her hands cupped around her ears. I think she's shouting something to someone on the raft; maybe that guy in the white shirt with a camera strap on his shoulder.
There's also someone on the raft with, I think, a Daisy Duck hat. It looks like Donald, but with a pink bow on top.
The Mark Twain: At first I thought that orange thing in the water ahead of the MT was a duck of some sort. But it lines up with that person in orange on the middle deck of the Twain. So it must be a reflection??
Thanks to Mister X and to Mister Major.
Someone aboard the Mark Twain splurged for at least three balloons, if not four. There's pink, light blue, darker blue and possibly a red one.
JB, that lady on the Tom Sawyer Island is singing the "We Are The Merry Mousketeers" song. She just got to the, "We've got a lot above our ears!" part.
Sir Albert Cascade would be delighted with today’s pictures. I spy a Daisy Duck hat on one of the raftees. All three shots look like Kodak Moments. (Bear Country was the only place to get a Kodak Moment.)
It certainly does look like a great time to visit the park. 1966. Probably the perfect size crowd.
JB, I first I was going for a duck, but after carefully inspection and some zoom, I think you are correct. that person really sticks out in that refection. Must be magic.
Melissa, I kept my Donald Duck Hat for many years after getting one in the 60s. Donald's beak finally kind of disintegrated and entropy took the rest.
Great photos, thank you Mr.X and Major. Jump into photos at their best.
Wow, thank you Mr. X and Major!
The Cascade Peak Fire Bell makes an appearance in both views. I think the timber interior of the mountain was fire-sprinklered against potential volcanic activity. Fortunately the bell has no scale, so it fits right in.
Three trash cans visible on the Esplanade, lots of bright clothes too. A cheerful day on the River. Beautiful stuff.
JG
Oh, and a very happy belated birthday to Bu!
Nanook, I suppose there were days when the island got crowded, but I always assumed that having to take a raft to get there might have kept a lot of people away. Maybe not!
JB, I’m not sure how tall Cascade Peak was… for one thing it was built on a rise so that it looked taller. If only I had my issues of “The E-Ticket Magazine” handy. Now I see the shouting lady, what’s her deal? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a Daisy Duck hat! I still have my Donald hat (with the squeaky bill) from when I was about three years old. Yes, the orange reflection seems to be of the person just below the Twain’s headlamp, though he is also behind a rope from our angle.
TokyoMagic!, three balloons? That must be, what, sixty buck’s worth of balloons? I thought that woman cupping her ears might be warning the folks on the raft about Galaxy’s Edge. She had a dream.
Melissa, at first I thought maybe the Daisy Duck hat had bright pink ears, but maybe it’s just a bow? Daisy liked her bows! WAS Bear Country the only place to have a “Kodak Moment”??
DrGoat, you must have worn your Donald Duck hat a lot for it to get so disintegrated! :-) Mine is in the closet at my mom’s house and it looks practically new. Maybe I need to take a photo of it. I know there are at least a couple of photos of me wearing it when I was a tiny child, not sure if I will be able to find those, however.
JG, that crazy fire bell, once you see it, you can’t “un-see” it. I admit that the peak looks potentially of volcanic origin. Jeez, I only see one, maybe two trashcans.
Melissa, it’s too late! Well OK, it’s not too late. I’m sure Bu thanks you.
Major, the cans are hard to spot as they no longer have the bright colors we were used to, these locations used to have the yellow "X" pattern.
From left to right:
1 gray or putty colored can visible below the maroon umbrella to the left of the GH sign. (I think the maroon umbrellas are ODV, but will defer to Bu for identification.)
1 gray or putty colored can top is just visible behind the shrubbery just to the right of the GH sign.
1 gray or blue-ish colored can visible, again under a maroon umbrella, just to the right of the CM on the shore-bound raft.
Might be more, but can't be sure. These look like they are about a hot-dog-munch apart.
I think I remember the Daisy Duck hats for some reason. As I recall it, the little pink bow was made of a kind of foam plastic with pores almost like a sponge. It looked like a bow until you looked closely. The ribbon and the eyelashes were almost the only difference between Daisy and Donald. I can't find any internet pictures that match my memory, so maybe I'm hallucinating and need more coffee.
JG
WAS Bear Country the only place to have a “Kodak Moment”??
Firstly, damn Autocorrect. Secondly, damn my wonky peepers. That was supposed to say, "Kodiak moment."
Happy Birthday, Bu! (pretend like it's yesterday)
Actually that isn't a reflection at all, but The Lady of the Lake (referred to on the Storybook boats a few days ago) rising to wreak her vengeance upon all things Disney. Fortunately, someone pointed out to her that this is a river, not a lake, and the whole plan kind of fell apart from there. I think she ended up eating a churro and taking a spin on the Teacups.
Now you know the rest of the story!
Melissa, I feel your pain. FWIW, I knew exactly what you meant...and that Autocorrect was to blame.
Major,
I think the Arizona sun had a lot to do with my precious Donald Duck hat. I left it outside after a couple of years and the sun did the rest. The squeaker still worked up until the untimely end.
Tokyo!, I bet those balloons didn't last much longer than when this photo was taken; the way they were allowed to come in contact with the various surfaces of the Mark Twain.
DrGoat, it IS odd that the orange reflection is so clear compared to the rest of the Mark Twain's reflection; which is so broken up.
And who is this "entropy" person you speak of? And why did he/she take your Donald Duck hat? ;-)
Major, that lady on the island just visited the Fantasmic! set and discovered it's horrible truth; and is now warning the approaching Rafters, "Soylent Green is peoplllllle!"
JB,
I called it entropy, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was my Italian grandmother, who would do away with things she deemed not useful anymore. She was the living manifestation of entropy around our house back then.
JG, I now see the cans that you see! And like you, I see some shapes that may or may not be other trash cans. The sponge “bow” makes sense, nobody will put their eye out. As for eyelashes being almost the only difference, that’s how it goes with Disney characters! Like Mickey and Minnie, or the White Rabbit and his “wife” (in the park, that is).
Melissa, autocorrect just doesn’t appreciate good puns!
Stu29573, the Lady of the Lake lives on dropped popcorn and soggy churro bits. Sometimes she eats sunglasses by accident, which makes her grouchy. Can you blame her?
Chuck, you and Melissa still have that mind meld from your time on the planet Vulcan.
DrGoat, ah, leaving a squeaky hat outside voids the lifetime warranty!
JB, I don’t ever remember seeing a Disneyland balloon pop (though it must have happened), but I have definitely seen people (kids mostly) accidentally let go, only to watch the balloon go higher and higher, and get smaller and smaller. Tears are often involved. MY tears. It’s so sad! That lady is not wrong about Fantasmic!. And you know, the nacho cheese Soylent Green is actually pretty tasty.
DrGoat, your grandmother and my sister would have gotten along just fine. We have learned to never put anything down that we wish to keep, or she’ll throw it out. “I value people, not things”, she tells us. I mean, WHY NOT BOTH?
Major, here's my popped Disneyland balloon story.
I desperately wanted a Mickey balloon, so Dad bought me one on the way out after the fireworks, from the vendor in front of the west tunnel.
Mom tied it to my wrist so I wouldn't lose it.
We were staying at the Magic Lamp motel right across Katella. I can't remember if we walked over, or if we parked and drove, but somehow, we got back to our room.
I had to untie the balloon to put on pajamas etc. but when I let go of it, it bobbed straight up to the ceiling, where it hit the prickly bits of the "cottage cheese" ceiling (which may or may not have had gold glitter embedded in it, as many of those type did in that era), and *BAM* that was the end of the balloon. Eeyore and I had much in common in that moment, and I never wanted a balloon ever again.
JG
JG, I watched the same exact thing happen to my youngest when he was four. Except it was a balloon from Red Robin and it was the ceiling of our family room. So I guess it wasn’t the exact same thing. But I understand completely.
Major, Vulcan is nice this time of year. You should plan a trip.
While I did have a couple of helium balloons in my younger years, I used to make my own floaty balloons. I must have read how to do it in a book. You take a glass pop bottle, add about a half cup of water and a couple of teaspoons of lye crystals. Drop in a few strips of aluminum (from a TV dinner works best). When the brew starts to bubble, fasten the neck of a balloon over the rim of the bottle; it's best to hold onto the rim so the balloon doesn't launch itself off the bottle. Then wait for the balloon to fill with hydrogen. Carefully remove the balloon from the bottle so the hydrogen doesn't escape. Tie it off... wallah!
Sometimes the chemical reaction would get too energetic and the caustic, boiling lye solution would bubble up the neck of the bottle and into the balloon... failure. At least once, the bottle got so hot that the base cracked open... really BAD failure. I tried setting the bottle into a bowl of water to keep from getting too hot after that. I was probably 9 or 10 at the time; although I made hydrogen balloons a couple of time in my teens as well. I also had a rather large chemistry set (again, age 9 or 10). I was a mad scientist.
Chuck, I wonder if Vulcan kids play with floaty balloons?
They play with Vulcanized rubber balloons!
JG, oh, those cottage cheese ceilings! As if they weren’t bad enough. I would have liked them just a tiny bit better if our had had mica flecks in it, but at some point my mom and dad paid someone to have the cottage cheese scraped off. My understanding is that it contained asbestos, but I sure don’t remember the scrapers being very careful.
Chuck, I am mad because I have been to Red Robin at least half a dozen times and nobody has ever offered me a balloon. They are also pretty chintzy with their “endless fries” (or whatever they call them).
JB, Whoa, I never heard of that particular experiment. It sounds pretty cool, and also possibly dangerous. See: the Hindenburg. I remember when I was a kid we had a chemistry set that I’m sure would be completely illegal today, I remember it actually had a little tube of mercury, you were supposed to be able to pour it into your hand and play with it. Great idea! There was some other substance that, when burnt, produced a smoke that would turn a purple flower bright green. No idea what it was, after all these years. Now… where can I get some lye crystals??
Melissa, your answer is logical.
Major-
Would you believe 75-feet-?
Post a Comment