Pickles and Eye Patches

As promised, today was a good day for mud. The Hangman's Tree received a section of concrete complete with an eye patch. Tomorrow we will mud the top of the seam where these two pieces of the tree meet.  We can then separate these two segments. They will not be put back together again until they get to Trinidad.

We also finished mudding all the masts for the various ships and Gruffle houses. It feels great to finally check them off our list.

And of course we continue to work on the roller coaster bases for phase II of Cultus Lake.

We like to start every project with a story and the Runaway Mine Train roller coaster is no exception. Guests may notice that the coaster constructors appear to have used whatever they could find to build the track including this old pickle barrel. I have a feeling that by the time we are finished they will have used everything from Sarsaparilla kegs to crates of TNT to hold up this rickety old train.

This one's for Peter.

We dreamed and planned for our new house for many years. In that time we explored and considered many different ideas. Each time the talk of a fireplace came up Peter would loudly try to convince us to do a giant face with the wide open mouth for the fire pit. At first we would politely decline or change the subject but it became a running joke with Peter more insistent about his idea each time and us wanting something a little less wild. We are people of moderation after all. :) In the end we didn't build a fireplace into the house and Peter missed his chance to do the ultimate themed fire pit.

Today, as Janis & I were touring EPCOT we were on a mission. We had our eyes open, looking for a special feature we had glimpsed on the TV on the bus coming from the airport. As we entered EPCOT, those we asked had no idea of it's location but we were determined to find it. My guess was to go to the Italy pavilion in the World Showcase. It was the furthest point from the gate and a very long walk.  At the back of the pavilion was a pizza parlor and inside was the feature we were looking for. Not only that but there were three in a row.

James and the Giant Tree

The weatherman has decreed that the next week will have sun as far as the eye can see.

And its just in time, because there is something waiting in our parking lot that - surprise, surprise - is just too big to fit in the shop. We've been waiting patiently to begin the mudding of the final feature for Scallywag Bay's adventure golf.

The hangman's tree will be built in three sections and will stand some 20 feet tall when fully assembled.

The mud begins tomorrow so stay tuned because its shaping up to be to be a heck of a week.