Since we had never been to West Baden and French Lick together, we took off one day and decided to sightsee in the area. Byron had been at the hotel in West Baden around 1981 and he was especially wanted to see the hotel in it’s restored state. At that time it was being used by Northwood Institute as a training center for their culinary and hospitality programs. The hotel itself, however, had fallen into a state of disrepair.
The dome of West Baden Springs Hotel as photographed in the fall.
At the time it was built, the dome of the hotel was the largest
in the world in terms of height from ceiling to floor and
radius from the center to the outer walls. Much of the
terrazo tiles that covered the entire floor has been
covered by carpet. The floor suffered a large crack
before the hotel’s initial closing as a business in the 1940s.
We arranged to meet Larry and Peggy Stahl who live near Danville, Illinois. We enjoyed a great lunch together at one of the restaurants frequented by Larry Byrd (in the day) and took a ride on the French Lick Scenic Railroad.
This is actually a composite photo. Martha took one photo and
then Byron took another. All that was left to do was move
Byron’s image onto the photo taken by Martha. Larry and
Peggy just had to stand still and hold a smile.
The“Scenic Railway” is, in reality, not too scenic. After all,
railroad were sources of noise and polution and ran through
the back yards of many people. That the trees were not
in their fall prime was also not a help.
As many of you know, we began our fulltiming journey on July 1 or 2014. As we passed from 2018 into 2019 we began our fifth season at what has become our winter base, Great Oak RV Resort in Kissimmee, Florida. In conjunction with this, Byron began his fifth season at Walt Disney World working at Casey’s Corner or Tomorrowland Terrace as Martha began her fourth season at Chick-fil-A in Celebration, a Disney-designed community just south of the WDW complex. Also, we are always happy to return to First United Methodist Church where Byron takes on the teaching role of the Hugh Embry Sunday School Class.
Since Byron gets complimentary tickets to the parks, we took advantage of the opportunity to go to EPCOT for an early dinner at the Rose and Crown. After having fish and chips (Martha) and shepherd’s pie (Byron) we went to our sixth annual performance of the Candlelight Christmas Processional. We think this will do us for a while since the program is the same from year to year. The only thing that changes are thee narrators. This year, we heard Pat Sajack from Wheel of Fortune.
A performance of the Candlelight Christmas Processional. The tradition
of the program was initiated by Walt Disney himself with the first
performances being at Disneyland. When Walt Disney World opened,
the program became an annual activity for EPCOT.
The choral music program features a choir and orchestra of auditioned Disney cast members plus local high school, college, and church choirs. The program is presented three times each evening from the middle of November to December 31.
Every Disney property has a castle as the focal point of
the Magic Kingdom. Each castle at each property is
different in some way and named for a different
Disney princes. This is how the Cinderella Castle
looks in the early evening light when decked out
for the Christmas season.
Our travels were somewhat restrictive this year. We went from the Kentucky end of I-64 to it’s extreme eastern point at Virginia Beach where we spent the summer. Of course, we tend not to take one of two paths to Central Florida from our Louisville haunts.
We’ll get back to the blog again in April when we begin our trek northward through Louisville to Henderson, New York. We’ve contracted to work at the 1000 Islands/Association Island KOA on the edge of Lake Ontario.
