A New Year, A New Project

As part of my ongoing towel production, I thought I should make kitchen towels for my son.  I've made them for my daughter, for my boat and for me.  Why should my poor son be left out?  His taste runs to something between Baroque and Steampunk.  Favorite colors are black and gold.  I was going to make him waffle weave towels like the others I've done recently, but hey.  How Steampunk can waffle weave be??

So I remembered a beautiful complex twill in Carol Strickler's A Weaver's Book Of 8-Shaft Patterns.  The draft is a 7-shaft reduction of a 16-shaft twill called Bethlehem Star.  I thought it would be beautiful in black and gold.  After working it out in my weaving software, I realized I didn't have enough of either color to warp the project.  So I made upset muttering noises and proceeded to ask my friend if she had any 8/2 unmercerized cotton in her stash.  She had over 2 pounds of black, but older black from a different maker.  I took it anyway and warped it on.  Let me tell you, black is not the easiest color to warp when your eyes aren't the best and when there's no good natural light in the weaving room!  Anyway, I got it on and proceeded to weave...

And wound up with 16 broken warp threads in the first repeat.  But it IS beautiful!

Joseph's Towels

I don't know if the thread is too weak to use in the warp or if I'm having abrasion problems.  I cut off the first repeat and decided to re-tie and try again.  I used a lighter tension and got through a couple of repeats without a broken thread and then, bam!  I'm up to six broken threads again.  However, I have noticed that the upper and lower shaft bars are hitting the warp, so I may need to re-tie the shafts.  Not my favorite task, but I really don't want to have to re-thread this project.

I Still Knit

Squirrel Slippers

Did everyone think that I've stopped knitting?  I do still knit.  I finished these adorable tree-squirrel-heart slippers from Laura Farson's Knitting Scandinavian Slippers and Socks.  These have had their share of problems as well.  I started them in Queensland Kathmandu Aran.  We had it on clearance at the shop and I do love Donegal-style wools.  1) I didn't have enough natural and we didn't have more, 2) the Donegal characteristics obscure the pattern and 3) the second slipper was MUCH bigger than the first.  I must have been uber-tense with the first one.  I ripped out the second slipper and made more of those upset muttering noises.

But I did really want those slippers, so I started over using colors in the Ella Rae Classic Heather we carry at the shop.  They turned out beautifully!  They're not as warm as my felted slippers, so I tend to put them on when I'm working at my desk or have my feet up on the glider or am weaving.  But they're wonderful!  I have a second set on the needles in a icy, heathery blue and natural.  They're done with snowflakes.  At least I won't have so many ends to work back in!!

January White Sale
January is my time to work on the house.  I've driven everyone crazy with reorganization, but I'm liking it.  I changed out the bedding.  I needed a lighter down coverlet on my bed and while finally getting that taken care of, I noticed that Restoration Hardware had real linen sheets on sale.  I splurged and got myself a set.  Now that's luxury!!  I've replaced missing pieces of my stoneware, flatware and my grandmother's silverplate.  I'll replace the single broken piece of my grandmother's china.  I moved the flatware from here to there in the kitchen and bought plain cotton napkins to use instead of paper towels.  I LOVE this time of year!!

In fact, I think I'll go move other things around!

Lots of Hemming

I've finished both sets of towels that I talked about in the last post.  I wound up with a stack of seven towels to hem and enough extra fabric to make two potholders.  By Sunday (yesterday), all the hemming was done and the potholders were made.  I'm happy with the results!

Gypsea's Towels (and Potholders)

First up are the towels for the sailboat.  We've neglected poor Gypsea for the last couple of years.  We haven't been up much at all, and I know she's suffering from lack of care.  We'll start back at New Year's.  We like to spend New Year's Eve on the boat and have plans to do so again this year.  At least I'll have a small pressie for a neglected sailboat!

Ripsmatta Towels

And the ripsmatta towels are finished.  The project plans called for three towels from the warp.  By the time I'd finished the third one, I had quite a bit of warp left.  I wasn't sure if I had enough for a fourth towels, so I made a smallish hem at the beginning.  It was nerve-wracking, but indeed, I had enough warp for the fourth towel!

Squeaking Out a Fourth Towel

As you can see, I was pretty much out of room to work, but I did it and that's what counts!

I like ripsmatta so much that I decided to warp a second set of towels onto the loom.  I've wanted to make these Southwestern Mission-inspired towels for some time.  They're in one of the 2002 editions of Handwoven magazine.  I ordered the thread for them at the same time I ordered the thread to finish up the last of Cassie's towels.  After Gypsea's towels came off the loom, I got the Mission towels on.  Here's the beginning of the first towel on the loom.

Mission Towels on the Loom

These almost look better if you look at them upside down.  Anyway, I'm very pleased with how they're turning out. Now that I understand how they work, I think I'll play with the treadling pattern and see what happens!

This is just a short post.  But I also want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Towels for a Sailboat

The last set of waffle weave towels are off the loom, waiting to be finished.  I did, indeed, run out of the teal weft thread, and ordered more.  Just after I warped the ripsmatta towels onto the Glimakra, I realized that I had the same teal thread in the kit I wanted to weave for the boat's towels.  I had plenty to use for the boat towels and still finish my daughter's towels.  So I did.  I had enough warp left on her towels to weave fabric for matching potholders.  Now, of course, it's a search to find the heat resistant fabric for the backing, but I think I've found a source.

Old time weavers would save warping time by tying a new warp to the end of the old warp and pull the new threads through the heddles and reed.  This only works, of course, if you're doing the same weave.  Since the new towels are exactly the same structure as the old ones, the pull-through technique was at least viable.  The modern version of this technique is how many people thread their sergers.  Tie new threads to the end of the old threads and pull them through!  Well, tying four or five threads isn't that big a deal.  Tying well over 400 is a bit more daunting.  But I persevered and I think it did save some time.  Anyway, I have a very nice warp.

Gypsea's Towel #1 - Lavender weft

Here's the first towel in-progress.  I finished this one today and started the second towel, which uses the darker blue in the middle of the stripe.  I'm liking how it's turning out.  The third towel technically uses the white as the weft, but I'm not sure I'm going to like it.  I'm considering using the teal of the warp.  I have a full cone of it, so there's plenty of yarn there.  We'll see!

In the meantime, this is a fun structure to weave.  It goes quickly, and with my new end-feed shuttle, quite smoothly as well.  Gypsea will have herself some handwoven towels soon!

Weaving Something New

Ripsmatta Towels

Sometimes things just don't always go the way you want.  I've had Custom Woven Interiors, a weaving book by Kelly Marshall, for several months.  All the projects in it are in a structure, ripsmatta or rep weave, that I've never tried before.  All the projects except this one are for some kind of interior design fabrics; rugs, upholstery fabric, what have you.  I've never done any of the above.  But the thing that really grabbed me about this book was the use of color.  I fell for these towels because of the colors and subtle patterning created by the color play.  I thought these towels would be a good place to begin this exploration.

I ordered the thread for the towels at the beginning of September.  However, I really wanted to get the Dog off the Loom (see last post) before starting anything else.  And then I really wanted to get my daughter's towels done before starting anything else.  Sadly, I ran out of the teal weft thread I was using for the last of the three towels.  I've ordered more, but it'll be later this week before the thread arrives... and there may be dye lot color problems.  Yikes!  So I decided it was time.  Get these towels on the loom!

My first challenge was simply understanding how the drafts in the book worked.  I made it harder on myself by overthinking it, but I really think that some experience with ripsmatta would be helpful before tackling this book.  I tried several times to make it work in my weaving software.  Finally, it made sense to me and I got it into the software.  However, there was still this niggly feeling that I'd done something wrong.  I figured, though, that I'd never learn until I got the warp on the loom and started weaving.

Last week saw me setting up two more shafts on the loom and getting them into the new countermarche system.  I wound the warp on Friday evening and finished it off Saturday.  I had some problems coming up with a way to wind the warp.  The colors change with every thread and most times there are four colors alternating.  I really wasn't willing to wind four threads at a time.  I ended up by winding one layer of warp in one bout and then a second bout of the second layer.  It worked quite well on the board, but not so well at the loom.  It tangled more than I've had a warp tangle in a while, but it wasn't bad.

Saturday was a marathon session at the loom.  I got the warp sleyed, threaded and beamed onto the loom.  I have to admit, it looked good.  There are few things that make me smile like a nice warp on the loom!

Nice warp on the loom

 
I got the weft thread wound onto bobbins for two shuttles.  I sat at the loom.  Okay, weaving the hem for the towels wasn't all that big a deal, but when the pattern weaving started I just wasn't sure.  For one thing, warp threads started breaking.  First one, then four more, then two after that.  Seven broken threads inside a foot of weaving??  Scary!  I sometimes missed locking the warp threads at the selvedges and had warp floats.  Sigh.  I wasn't sure how hard to beat and no matter how hard I beat, I could always see some weft threads.

After broken thread number seven, I gave up and went to bed.  Today, I'm more at peace with it.  I think that at this density, the weft threads aren't hidden.  The weaving is what it is.  And, quite frankly, I think it's really pretty!  I'm looking forward to trying more projects from this book.

Although I'll probably choose different colors!

Towels On The Loom

Since I've been traveling so much, I haven't gotten much weaving done in the last six months or so.  I have some wonderful projects in the design phase, but few have made it to the loom.  I've had a "dog on the loom" going for almost a year.  A dog on the loom is a project that the weaver has lost interest in and just can't seem to work on.  The dog takes up space on the loom that could be used for a more interesting project.  Well, I decided that I'd finish the dog - two scarves that really should be pretty and kind of aren't.  The scarves were overshot - my favorite weave structure.  Normally, overshot uses a pattern weft twice the thickness of the warp.  In this case, the warp (the variegated yarn) and the pattern weft (the red) were the same thickness.  The tabby weft that kind of holds it all together was khaki sewing thread.  I wasn't happy with how the red weft formed large blocks.  I was hoping that the colors would fade from one to the other.  Nope!

Red Dog on the Loom

But since I was on a Dog-Off-The-Loom mission, I got the red scarf woven.  I was planning on cutting off the rest of the warp and saving it.  But hey.  It was already on the loom and why not just weave it off.  So I started the purple pattern weft.

Purple Dog on the Loom

I'm glad I did, because I think it's much prettier!  I still need to finish the scarves, but I had the purple woven off within a week or two of starting it.  So, that freed up my good old Schacht 4-harness loom.

My daughter wanted dish towels for her university apartment.  She chose a kit from Halcyon Yarn.  Normally, I don't weave with kits, but I wanted to try out their 8/2 unmercerized cotton.  The jury is still out on how well I like the cotton, but the towels are coming out very pretty.  This is the first time I've woven waffle weave.  The waffles will show up better when the towels are off the loom and washed, but you can see them forming now.  There will be three towels when I'm finished and each will be a different color in the weft.  Here's Towel Number One, woven with a light green weft:

Towel Number Two is woven with a dark green weft - almost a grey-brown-olive color:



Towel Number Three is woven with a teal weft.  I'm scared about this one because I don't think there's enough weft thread.  We'll see!

I've finished some projects that were woven earlier in the year.  I think I like to weave, and hate to hem!  Here is a set of four towels in a Barleycorn weave.  I love barleycorn almost as much as overshot.  It's very similar, but not quite the same.  These were woven at the General Sam Houston Folk Festival this past April.  Such fun!

Well, I'd better get back to the loom and finish Towel Number Three!  I have at least two towel project lined up after this one!

Look For America Trek

So what is this Look for America Trek?  At the end of October I drove my parents to the Blue Ridge Mountains to visit family.  This is THE time of year to do it, so we did.  Since I wasn't totally recovered from my Disney adventure and illness, we took it slow.  Day 1 was from San Antonio to Lafayette, Louisiana.  Not much to report there.

Day 2 - Montgomery, Alabama
Day 2 was from Lafayette, Louisiana to Montgomery, Alabama. About halfway through the drive we came to Mobile, Alabama and the beautiful Bellingrath Gardens.  This was maybe the fourth or fifth visit for my parents, but my first visit.  Technically, this wasn't the best time to see the gardens.  However, the flowers were well into their autumn bloom cycle.  The roses were blooming as were some azaleas, and a few camellias.  The mums were set out for the huge November festival .  A few had started blooming, but most were still in the tight bud stage.

Let's face it.  I love roses.  Anybody who knows me, knows I love roses. Of all the photos I took of them, here are three: Sadly, I don't know the name of this rose.  But it's gorgeous!

Here is a Wild Blue Yonder rose.  It's kind of purple, not blue, but who cares??

Wild Blue Yonder

And the last is a Moonstone rose.  I'm not usually a fan of modern roses, but I might just have to get myself one of these!  The rose retains the pink edging to the petals throughout its life, although it fades as the rose matures.  It's beautiful!

Moonstone Rose

I could go on forever about the flowers in the greenhouse.  There were pineapples growing and hibiscus and all manner of tropical flowers.  However, the orchids really caught my eye.  Here's just one of them - a classic cattleya.

Cattleya Orchid

The house fascinated me as well.  It's not a huge place in an ostentatious style, but it's big and comfortable.  I couldn't take photographs of the inside, but here's one of the courtyard from the outer walk.

Here's the same courtyard from the other side. (Standing inside the arches.)

Here's the last flower photo - a camellia we saw on the walk out.

Day 3 - Blue Ridge, Georgia
We got a late start from Montgomery and decided to take a detour around Atlanta to visit Stone Mountain Park.  I'd never been there before and had always wanted to.  Okay, I'll be honest here.  The park is amazing and I'd love to come back sometime, but the carving is not quite up to what I expected.  Here's the best shot I got of it.

Carving on Stone Mountain

Day 4 - In the Mountains!
We visited quite a few places around north Georgia, but I took the most photos at Amicalola Falls State Park.  It's difficult to get the waterfall.  It's the highest waterfall east of the Mississippi (although I can't believe Niagra isn't higher), but it's impossible to get a clear shot of the entire fall.  Here's my best try:

Amicalola Falls

Here's a photo of the lower falls:

After visiting the Falls and having a wonderful lunch there, we visited a pumpkin farm and an apple farm.  The apple farm was dangerous!  I walked out with a half-bushel of the best Pink Lady apples I've ever tasted, a jug of apple juice and a bottle of sparkling apple cider.  Didn't get any photos, but the pumpkin farm was awesome!  People take their little ones to be photographed there the same way we take ours in the spring to photograph them in the bluebonnets.

That's my shadow in the lower left.  It's as close as I have to a photo of myself.

Day 5 - More Mountains!
Again, we spent the day visiting places around North Georgia.  It's been a dream of mine for years to hike the Appalachian Trail.  We stopped at Mountain Crossings at Neel's Gap which has the distinction of being the only covered part of the trail.  I left my parents and cousins at the store and hiked a little way up the trail by myself.  I wish I could have gone further, but at least I got my boots on the Trail!

My cousins know all the best restaurants.  The following photo is one I'd have never thought I'd ever take.  It's a mural on the wall of the ladies' room in Antonietta's in Blairsville, GA.  It's a great restaurant, I must say, but who would have ever thought to disguise a vent so cleverly??



After driving through the National Forest, we came upon this wonderful old bridge.

I don't know if it exactly qualifies as a piano bridge, but it's very small and rattles quite a bit.  However, the views from it are awesome!

Upstream, I could see a man fly fishing.  I've never actually seen anyone fly fish before.  It's fascinating, but I don't think it's my sport!

Day 7 - Johnson City, TN
On day 6, we left my cousin's house, heading to Johnson City, TN.  I've wanted to visit my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather's farm, the Tipton-Haynes Historic Site.  My parents visited it several years ago and told me about it.  We got there too late to visit the site, so we spent the night and visited the site the next day.  Dad forgot to get a photo of COL John Tipton's grave when he was there, so I insisted we find the cemetery and get a photo.  COL Tipton had quite a bit to do with the founding of Tennessee as a state.  Apparently, he was a strong-minded, rather colorful old character.  I do love his home and am proud to call him one of my ancestors.

Tipton-Haynes Farm

We got to share the site with several classes of second-graders.  Even so, the staff of the site was very kind to us.  I'm especially interested in an overshot coverlet in the museum.  I'm working on figuring out the draft and hope to have a sample woven before too long!

And yes, we saw the cemetery.  What a quiet, beautiful place!

COL John Tipton's Grave

The grave is at the lower right of the photo.  The marker is hard to see as it's sideways to the photo.  They aren't really sure which of the two (or possibly three) graves there is COL Tipton's.  He is buried alongside at least his second wife.  I'm descended from his first wife who may or may not be buried there.  It's such a beautiful place, though!

After leaving Johnson City, we drove through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg on our way to drive through the Sequatchie Valley.  My mother's family lived there and migrated from there to Mississippi.  Okay, just forget Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.  For years I've wanted to visit the big October craft fair in Gatlinburg.  No.  The place is so heavily commercialized, it just isn't fun at all. However, after fighting 10 mile-an-hour traffic through both cities, we did get to drive through the Smokies.  Again, a beautiful, beautiful place!

The photos need no commentary!

Sadly, by the time we got to the Sequatchie Valley, it was dark, so I didn't get to see it.  After a rather grueling trip across lots of mountain passes and up (and down!) Signal Mountain into Chattanooga, we couldn't seem to find a hotel for the night.  We finally found a Days Inn in Trenton, GA.  Trenton is in the extreme northwest corner of the state.  I didn't even know it was there, but they had a hotel with two rooms remaining, and we got those!

The next two days were the long drive back to San Antonio.  Day 8 was distinguished by crossing five states in one day.  Okay, we were almost out of Georgia when we started and we spent the night in Tyler, Texas, but that's still quite a bit of driving!  Day 9 brought us home to San Antonio.  The worst part of the drive?  IH-35 between Roundrock, north of Austin, and home.  The traffic was awful!

But this was a wonderful trip and one I look forward to making again sometime.

Since this trip, I've been staying home and am back to my looms again.  But that's a story for the next post!

Visiting Disney - Part IV

Epcot

Epcot Pins

Day three of our Disney adventure found us at Epcot.  Epcot is an interesting park and not everyone's favorite.  Epcot is really two parks in one.  The front part is FutureWorld with all kinds of exhibits for techie fans and environmental fans while that back part is for fans of traveling.  The World Showcase is there, featuring such countries as China, Japan, Mexico and Canada, Norway, Morocco and Africa (which they call the Outpost), France and Germany, Italy and England.  Oh!  And the United States!  I don't think I'm forgetting anyone, but I apologize if I am.  Each of the countries has food offerings and a shop where you can buy things typical of that country.  Also, each area is staffed by young people native to that country who are bilingual.  They're very nice and it's great for practicing your language skills!  We decided to use our snack allotments here and snack our way around the world!

For some reason, we always turn left out of FutureWorld and head into Mexico.  Because of that, we've never really gotten to enjoy Canada and England!  One of these fine days I AM going to turn right and start with them.  Mexico, we usually bypass as we live so close to Mexico and can visit any time we like.  Next up is Norway, and this is the place for breakfast!  We each had a yummy pastry and juice while waiting for the Maelstrom ride to open.  It's a water ride and some people think it's getting long in the tooth, but I still love it.  After your water adventure, you exit in a small "village."  There's a small sailboat tied up to the dock on the "river."  As nearly as we can tell, it's a real sailboat.  The buildings in the village are adorable, but what excited me was looking up to see an SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) placard over one of the doors.  A dear family friend recently retired from SAS, so this one is for him:

After our adventure in Norway, we went next door to China.  (No, I have no idea how they decided who would be next to whom.)  This one really made me think.  As we approached what looked to be a beautiful temple, a lovely young lady in native dress beckoned us in for the movie, Reflections of China. This is a 360, Circle Vision film that is just this side of IMAX.  You start your tour of China on the Great Wall with one of the ancient poets as a guide.  I had no idea just how beautiful China is.  Perhaps someday I'll be able to visit there.

After visiting China, we passed through the African outpost (after all, we're STAYING in an African outpost!) and had our mid-morning snack in Germany.  Throwing caution, and possible repercussions to the wind, I made George order our pretzels, his beer and my water in German.  I thought he did quite well!  Of course, this meant that if we ate in France, I'd have to do the ordering!

Now the World Showcase lets me indulge my love for architectural photography and sketching, so here we go! Patience, please!

An adorable shop in the German area

After Germany, we found ourselves in Italy, but we didn't stop for all that long.  We pushed on to America.  There's a replica of Independence Hall there where they have a wonderful film and animatronic show, a concert given by the most incredible a capella choir, and a show given by a Colonial fife and drum corps.  Of course, we had to stay for that.  The show, The American Adventure, is hosted by Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain. It's a bit corny, maybe, but I love it, too.  The choir is simply awesome.  They do American folk songs and patriotic numbers.  They end with a version of the Star Spangled Banner that never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

After America, we visited Japan.  This is one of the most beautiful areas of Epcot.  My feet were really giving me trouble, so I didn't take photos here.  We listened a bit to the Taiko drummers while my wonderful husband gave me a foot rub, we looked around the shop and then headed to Morocco for lunch!

Morocco is my favorite of all the countries represented in Epcot.  The architecture is wonderful!  It's probably the most complex of them all being a bazaar area with all kinds of twisty little turns and places to lose yourself.  This is normally my favorite place to photograph and sketch, but we were ready for lunch, so we devoted our time to a magnificent lunch at the Tangierine Cafe (what a wonderful pun!).  We would have loved to have stayed and listened to Mo'Rockin but we realized that we needed to go get ready for our Adventure of the Day!

Dive Quest

George and Me

The Seas in FutureWorld (the front part of Epcot) is a 6-million gallon salt-water aquarium.  There are all kind of viewing windows onto it and the wonderful restaurant, Coral Reef, has windows into the aquarium.  The aquarium is home to lots of sea life, including three species of shark, sea turtles, eagle rays and many, many more.  The coral in the aquarium, however, is all man-made.  Because the aquarium is completely enclosed and receives no natural sunlight, coral cannot grow.  The Disney Imagineers have created very authentic-looking coral made of concrete.

There are several extra events you can do in The Seas, but for certified scuba divers,  you can go on a 40-minute dive in the tank.  The entire event is two hours and you see parts of Epcot that no outsider ever gets to see. We all met outside the park and were taken in hand by our tour leader, Andy - a guy with the most positive attitude and the greatest sense of humor.  After a quick tour of what most visitors see of the Seas and our safety briefing and release-signing, we received our wetsuits and booties and headed to the lockers to change. We were then led to the aquarium itself to meet our divemasters and get started on our dive.

Both George and I are certified divers, but neither of us has done any diving in 10 years or so. We decided that this dive would be a good way to get back into it.  I was concerned about my left ear as I had an ear infection in it several years ago.  It has never been as easy to clear pressure in that ear since the infection.  I had a couple of problems at the beginning.  I didn't have enough weight in my BC, a situation our divemaster quickly saw.  I surfaced (actually, I couldn't keep from surfacing).  She surfaced with me and as she was confirming that I needed more weight, I was hit hard from behind by what I thought was another diver surfacing.  Nope!  It was one of the sea turtles.  We all signed releases that we would not touch the turtles, but we'd been warned that they don't sign the releases and sometimes they touch us!  I hadn't been prepared for just how much mass one of those creatures has!  I felt terrible about the encounter, but I don't think I could have done anything to have avoided it.  After our divemaster got my weights straightened out, I descended, yes, having trouble equalizing the left ear.  After a little coaxing, it equalized and off went for our dive.

George

I think we enjoyed playing with the humans the most.  We would swim up to the windows and wave to the visitors, both in the observation area and in the Coral Reef Restaurant.  However, I wound up doing some serious observation of the sharks.  Let me be very clear here.  I am deathly afraid of sharks.  It almost kept me from getting my scuba certification.  On my very first ocean dive, I saw a shark.  I've gradually come to realize that they have a beauty of their own, although I really don't want to get all personal with one.  While laying on the bottom of the tank, watching the marine life swim by, George and I had a very large, maybe 8' shark swim straight for us.  I decided (fearfully) to hold my ground and see what he'd do.  He broke and swam away from us, but not before I had time to decide what  stupid idea that was!  I'd never do it in the wild.  I swear those things have more than two rows of wicked-looking teeth.  I think their entire mouth is full of wicked-looking teeth!  Yikes!

Anyway, after our 40 minutes of bottom time, we surfaced, turned in our equipment and headed to our wonderful hot showers.  After meeting up again, we updated our dive logs and bought our copy of the video from the dive.  The stills here are taken from that video.

Me

 What a fun thing to do!  I probably wouldn't do this again, as I would the Wild Africa Trek, but I'm glad I did it once.  Next time (given I get over my ear problems) we're going diving in the Keys!

We ended our day with supper in the France area of the World Showcase and yes, I had to order in French.  I think I did quite well, thank you!

After supper, we found places to watch the fireworks, Illuminations of Earth.  This has been my absolute favorite fireworks show in all of Disney.  But yes, there were changes to Epcot, many of which I wish hadn't happened.  Remember the loud music in Animal Kingdom?  There is a loud Celtic/rock band in the England area of the World Showcase.  Sigh.  And the fireworks are maybe a third of their original length.  What a disappointment!

Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios)

Hollywood Studios Pins

Our fourth and last day at DisneyWorld was at Hollywood Studios.  This is home to three of our favorite rides. As we arrived, I decided to do the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.  This has been George's favorite ride and I just couldn't make myself do it last time we were here.  This time I decided that two minutes of anything probably wouldn't kill me, so off we went to get into line. Yep, this is definitely one where you don't want a FastPass.  The line snakes through the "grounds" of the Hollywood Tower Hotel.  They are beautiful as is the interior with all its interesting things to see!

Hollywood Tower Hotel

Okay, here's my last architectural photo:

Angel Statue in the Courtyard of the Hotel

After viewing the Twilight Zone preshow - yes, it's Rod Serling, but the voice is an incredibly talented impersonator - we went to the service level to take the elevator up to our "rooms."  We were lucky the first time to get seats in the front row.  (This is truly where you want to be.)  After fastening our seatbelts, the elevator took us upstairs... to see the ghosts of the five former visitors who entered the Twilight Zone beckoning us!  Then the doors closed and we went up again... and out of the elevator shaft into the Twilight Zone.  As the lights go out and you have ample time to regret ever doing this... You're suddenly weightless!  I was simply not prepared for what a beautiful, peaceful feeling weightlessness is.  The Tower of Terror is a wonderful, wonderful ride!  My first thought was that I wanted to do it again!

We ran around to the Rock 'N' Roller Coaster to get FastPasses (yep, you want them here) and then ran back to do the Tower of Terror again!!  This time we had to sit in the back (sigh) but oh such fun!

After our second Terror experience, we rode the Rock 'N' Roller Coaster.  Okay, this is my absolute favorite rollie.  Yes, it's mostly in the dark.  Yep, it does two (some people say three) inversions, the first of which is immediately after it catapults you up to 60mph.  But it's smooth and awesome and I adore it.  They say it pulls 4 G's on you, but I swear I don't feel it.  One thing.  Do put your head back into the cushions when you get into the car and keep it there.  Your head's coming back into the cushions one way or the other, but it's best that you put it there yourself.  And me, yes, I sing the Aerosmith songs at the top of my lungs while riding the coaster.  Such fun!!

And yep!  We rode the Rock 'N' Roller Coaster twice!  PS, don't eat just before this one. Just sayin'.

And our last ride was the Great Movie Ride.  I love this silly thing!  Your guide takes you through all kinds of classic movies, Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and many more.  This is a must-do for all movie buffs.

Since this was our last day, we watched the parade and then left to go do a little shopping at Downtown Disney.  We also booked a wonderful dinner at Jiko.  If I hadn't been coming down with what I now know was an ear infection, I would have enjoyed it even more, but Jiko is always awesome!

And there you are.  Our trip to Disney, just two adults, with strong child-like leanings.

I hope you've enjoyed this small tour through a very magical place!