So Long Liberty Belle

Saturday, and a quiet day today.  Getting home tonight was pleasant, with all manner of lightning bugs out there in the yard, flashing all about, blinking silently here and there.  It's nice out there, just sitting there in the quiet and watching them lighting up time and again.

So this weekend is the last weekend for the Liberty Belle Riverboat in the Magic Kingdom.  It seems the next time we go down to the parks there will be some drastic differences.  Only a few weeks ago, Muppet Vision 3-D closed for the last time as well.  These are iconic rides.  I put on my 3-D glasses just recently and watched on my television the Muppet Vision 3-D as an homage to something I've been watching there in the park, every single visit, dating back to the 1990's.  No more.  And no more Tom Sawyer Island or the riverboat either.  Tom Sawyer Island was a place of mystery and exploration - I loved the fact that you could only get there via those small ferry boats.  And the exploration of the caves was fantastic, finding that fort, and the rope bridge... all of it was really cool.  Here's Maddie along the wall that Tom Sawyer was painting.  And here's Mom and Maddie at Ft. Langhorne, and here's Maddie at another thing they got rid of, the old shooting gallery there.  And here's a picture I took of the Liberty Belle beneath the fireworks.  I still remember riding that boat around the Rivers of America, always a pleasant ride past the Haunted Mansion and into areas of the Magic Kingdom that can't be seen otherwise.  I remember reading about it with the Kingdom Keepers too, the team famously hiding in a teepee to avoid Maleficent.  I'm going to miss all that a great deal, the whole of Frontierland so drastically changed.  

So today wasn't quite as eventful.  I was doing a good bit of office work, getting things ready for Sunday.  Maddie was spending some time with Nate today.  They were doing a good bit of video game playing.  Tonight, Mom and I were watching "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," which was a decent movie with a good bit of steampunk in there for good measure.  

We said our prayers tonight, and got ourselves to sleep early.  We have church and KidPak tomorrow morning!