The King Remains Seated

I stole this picture from THIS collection.

Horizons Recreation

Here's the first glimpse into an entire digital Horizons recreation by a friend of Mesa Verde Times!!

http://horizonsresurrected.blogspot.com/

The goal here is to recreate the attraction and let viewers navigate around at will!

Will you finally be able to jump out of your vehicles and explore!????????? let's hope so.

PS. Follow this blog and help us assist Chris with whatever he needs to finish this amazing work. Follow the blog!

Birthday PAN-O-RAMA

Like I mentioned before I was prone to hitting the "panorama" switch on my camera. Well hell! It was dark and then the switch was right where my thumb rested.

Anyway it made for a few interesting shots:)

Happy Birthday Davey...again

Back to the hardest scene to sneak into. The famous "Birthday Scene".

In the future babies can levitate or maybe the gravity's out of whack. In any case this was a cool little scene to behold. Most riders (we included) only paid attention to the holograms. It was only when we made it in that we realized the awesome attention to detail.

The UFO cake was almost impossible to see from your ride vehicle let alone the cool little alien....

.....with the rocket strapped to his back:)

It just dawned on me that we never told just how we got into this scene. I believe another Hoot and Chief Adventure Comic is in order!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First Audio Clips

We finally got around to capturing our audio collection!

Keep in mind that these are live recordings. There are great studio tracks out there but these are unique in that you'll get the feeling of being in the ride at a certain place.

1998 is long gone so close your eyes and imagine you're inside Horizons.

This first batch contains the three tracks from the "Travel Posters" which were on your left just before you entered the load area.

Sea Castle

Mesa Verde

Brava

Thanks again to the boys at Cartoon Basement for hosting these. Much more to come!

Just in Time For The Holidays!

Mesa Verde Times pal, Casey, sends us these delicious offerings:

"Howdy again. This is probably on your radar already, but I just today
realized that some of the crazy apples are in Innoventions - I took
the below picture today."



"This is inside of some weird fridge of tomorrow or something display.
If you hadn't seen it before, there you go. If you had, promptly
ignore me."

We hadn't seen it for sure as we don't go to Epcot anymore. Here's another from Casey from the newly re-opened "One Man's Dream" Exhibit

Now we have a reason to visit Hollywood Studios! Thanks, Casey!

Jstone said it best

Here we go

In my last post I said it was the end. Please understand that I meant it was the end of our story. There's really no more to tell on top of this amazing adventure. We did what we did and we made this blog for every Horizons fan on the face of the Earth.

Folks have sent emails concerned that this blog is over........it's hard to explain. It's not about lack of content because we have plenty more for you.

There was really no climax for Chief and I, which if there was, would make an excellent story. The attraction closed and we stood empty. For years. After the fact we collected tons of material and it doesn't really fit into our adventure story but it's all part of the history of Horizons.

We loved the attraction. Risked our lives. Took pics and video to preserve it and 12 years later blogged about it.

YOU will never stand empty. This blog will live for years to come and we'll continue to post our pics and later findings.

It ain't over 'til it's over.

Back to Nova Cite. Right behind us is the Mesa Verde Scent cannon. In front is Mom's apartment garden. We'd sneak around (on hands and knees) 'til we reached a door which lead to a huge room behind the backdrop. There, was stored huge glass panels for the Peppers Ghost effect. Endless coolness.


See those boxes full of "things"? We picked through them and found artifacts some of which followed us home. The boxes lay dank and dirty long forgotten by the people who were supposed to use their contents to keep scenes nice and neat.

Horizons was on it's death bed. No longer cared for. The family that had created her was gone.

Chief and I knew that this was the end but we kept at it. To care for Horizons at least in memories. We started to go mad with collecting everything we could.......

The End

Wow, man! What a ride! Mesa Verde Times has been an incredible experience to Chief and I.

I think we both feel we're nearing the end of this tale. The last of the pics are coming at you hard and should last 'til the new year at which point we'll be at the end of this adventure.

Fresh Roasted Corn will act as the pre/post show for Mesa Verde Times.

Thank you to all of you that contributed to Sunnycide and the fight against Breast Cancer. From my heart thanks to each and every one of you:)

While we wait....

.....try some Fresh Roasted Corn

Thank you to our pals we met through this blog

Sunnycide found a lump in her breast. It was diagnosed as cancer and extremely aggressive.

My dear Sunnycide is nothing but tough. She went through it all with a smile on her face determined to beat it and she did. Chief and I, of course were by her side.

Here's the invite of a lifetime for "Mesa Verde Times" cool people. JOIN US as we walk for breast cancer in Orlando on Oct. 17th. Be on the Sunnycide team because we aren't throwing out candy.....we're throwing out film clips and ACTUAL RIDE PROPS! Think we're bullshiting? You don't know us very well then:)

Click here

When you get there, Click on "Join a Team" over on the right. Search for "Kim's Crew for the Cure". Click and join up. We'll be walking because we only run when we're getting chased through an attraction.

Please, MVT cool people, Chief and I have never asked for anything but for you to enjoy our stories. We made this blog because it was free and we could share our adventures to you without cost. THIS IS THE ONLY THING We've EVER ASKED FOR. Join us!

Write us here
Mesaverdetimes@gmail.com

Do it for Sunnycide.

wow

What a horrible month!

My dear Sunnycide Gibson was diagnosed/treated/beat a life threatening illness all in that short span of time. Things have been nutz at the Gibson Estate as you can imagine. Sunnycide is well and on the road to recovery and all I really want is to blog about Horizons and get back to normal.

Thanks for hanging in there during this horrible dry spell.


The rains are a comin', Granny!

Another From the MVT Chicken Bag! (Eric)

THIS IS A MUST READ! Proof that Horizons inspired kids.

From, Bob Weekes, "last of the cool people" member:


I was 3 the first time I went to EPCOT Center and my brother was barely 1. I don't have many memories from that visit, but one that stood out was a mysterious ride that took you underwater, into outer space and allowed you to choose one of multiple endings. Oh yea, and it smelled like oranges.

The next time we went to Disney World as a family, I was 8 and my brother was 5. This time, I had grown far more conscious about where we were going and what we were going to experience. More than any other ride, I was fascinated with what I knew then as Horizons. In a Disney high inspired by my previous memories and endless loops of those great old vacation planning videos, I forced my younger brother to participate in "Disney" days. These days would consist of watching Disney planning videos and constructing mini lego and cardboard model Disney ride sets. Horizons was a personal favorite to include. I wish horribly that I had held onto these little creations, but of course I went through that teenage "this is stupid" phase and probably tossed everything.

ANYWAYS, we finally got to Disney World in November of 1994. Looking back, I now realize how damn lucky we were, as we JUST missed the first major closing of Horizons. When we got there, we went straight for EPCOT Center and made a B-line for Horizons. It was the closest thing to a religious experience I had in my childhood. Individuals on this blog have posted many great memories and aspects of this ride that made it so grand, and it does not differ here. The ride expanded what I thought was possible and blew my imagination wide open. I don't know how many times I rode Horizons with my brother that trip, but it probably wasn't enough. I cried when he we had to return to upstate NY after the 11 day trip, but I probably would have had to have been dragged out of the place had I known it would be the last time I would ever ride Horizons again in my life.

When we returned home, I was obsessed. I could not get the ride out of my head. Delusional with love for this ride, I made a pact with my younger brother Jim: we were going to build a replica of Horizons in our backyard.

Now of course even THEN I knew this was absurd, but in a Fitzcarraldo-esque way I thought it was somehow feasible. And after all, the Horizons motto was "If we can dream it, we can do it." Jim and I set out to business. We collected reams of cardboard from Sam's Club (or forced my mom to grab some whenever she went), because of course cardboard is the most reliable building block for a project such as this. We spent our nights fantasizing about how we would portray different scenes; how it would feel to be able to head outside into the backyard after our evening baths and go for a spin on Horizons. Of course, the fact that the Horizons show building took up 3 acres and our background MAYBE encompassed 1/16 of that did not deter us in the least. After all, we had plenty of other issues to deal with. We began drawing up designs for the AA (which would be constructed out of...DUH DUH DUH...CARDBOARD!) and presenting my mother (a seamstress) with designs for the costumes (s
he played along with our little "game" so nicely). We determined that the ride vehicle would be an ingenious cardboard box that would ride on top of my youngest brother's giant toy train along an expanse of plastic tracks (we only had about 10 feet of track, but hey whatever), which some unlucky "worker" would have to push through the ride. The show building would be a giant mold of duct-taped cardboard boxes that would be painted to look like the real Horizons (I don't think we ever considered that upon the first rainfall, or god forbid snowfall, our beloved attraction would look like a melted Jell-O mold).

After we got the basics out of the way, we moved onto the little details. For example, that robot butler with the spinning head: how was his head going to spin!? EASY, we make the head a seperate cardboard piece, attach it to a pole that's in the ground, then lead a piece of string from the head up through the roof where the other end was attached to a pencil would straddle the hole. The wind will take care of the rest. Genius. How are we going to have a working TV singing "It's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" during that scene? Obviously we'd steal the tube TV from the basement and stick it in there. What's that? Electricity? Who needs it!? Oh and the orange smell? Nothing that a ton of car air fresheners couldn't handle.

We had all these details "written" (in whatever scribble short-hand we were using at the time) down on sheets of paper from weeks of idea generating. Again, I wish SO badly that we still had these somewhere, but they're long since gone.

Finally it came time to put our idea in motion. We began construction on the first section. Since this was a time before the internet and the ability to see a detailed ride-through of the attraction, we had to go completely by memory. Since the section we wanted most and stood out to us the most was Brava Centauri, we began construction on outer space. We connected our first few boxes together in the kitchen. We spent days coloring the inside black with Sharpie MARKERS (I'm surprised our brains didn't melt...though that probably explains a lot now). We then poked holes in the sides for the "stars." We then began to hang little models of the space scene from the top of the box. Looking back on it, it really didn't make a half-bad giant diorama of the scene. Even though the reality of this project's futility was sinking in (the space obviously wasn't NEARLY large enough for even a person to walk through, let alone a carboard omnimover to make it through, there was no w
ay we could make the track ride "up-hill" as we had originally planed, and the whole "wow that was a lot of work for so little" was beginning to kick in), but damn if we weren't enthralled with it. That little section stood for a lot. It represented our love and nostalgia for the ride. We would sit in it, play the famous "Space" track from the ancient Disney Park Music album (which I still listen to and tear up at), and pretend that we were there. We realized that this was the sort of thing to leave in the safe hands of Disney. In the end, we were meant to enjoy the ride, not build it, and we would see it again soon enough. In the meantime we enjoyed our little section of our ride.

Fairly soon after that, the "ride" section and the plans were tossed for whatever reason (probably my parents needing their space back). But we waited, hoping to ride Horizons again. Of course, you know the story. When I heard that Horizons was closing for good in 1999, I remember crying my eyes out. It was (and is) so bizarre. So many pieces of my childhood and things that made life special back then, like certain movies, Nintendo games, books...I can pull them out and relive them. That's something that can never happen with Horizons (or the other rides in EPCOT), so when it closed it felt like a part of my childhood died forever. This site is the closest I've been brought back to the "Horizons feeling" since those days, and I thank you for it. Horizons inspired a lot of things in my life. It brought creativity out in me, it inspired me to want to tell stories, it was a motivating factor in wanting to become a Disney Cast Member in the parks for 8 months during a Disney College Internship. Sure it's "only" a ride, but I always feel like Horizons is a part of me.

In 2 days, I'm heading back to WDW for the first time in 3 years. I get to take my girlfriend with me for the first time to Epcot, but I wish I could have shown her EPCOT Center. There will simply be no way to ever convey what it was like in its glory days, or how amazing an experience Horizons was.


That's an amazing story if ever there was one. It inspires me to want to turn my living room into Nova Cite. Get me some card board!

From the MVT mailbag....

This is awesome. It's the FIRST email we've been sent telling about how someone else enjoyed jumping out of a Horizons ride vehicle.

Caroline Hood writes:

It was bound to happen, two bored teenage girls with an Epcot fetish getting stuck on Horizons. I mean it broke down enough in those days, I'd have to guess this was around 1996 or so. Back in the days before the mess that is Mission: Space happened. It was early fall, I'd guess to say about 8pm or so when we where in the middle of enjoying Horizons when the inevitable happened, that fateful E-Stop on the ride. We walked right on the ride, No line and I was fairly sure there couldn't have been more then 25 people total in that entire building. So naturally after sitting for about ten minutes before the bright idea dawned upon on fearless heads, we looked about and saw empty cars so naturally we slipped right out of the car and onto the platform.
Not nearly as brave as Hoot and Company, we only prowled around for about ten minutes before the "Oh SHIT!" moment when the ride restarted. Now there is a drop in Sea Base, we ducked behind the very first surface we saw that could hide to small teens. Slinking around on our bellies in the dust, we peeked around corners wondering what the hell we'd gotten into. After doing our best Bond impressions from spot to spot we began to get highly paranoid, surely the Disney Gods where going to smite us on high for this. Waiting for another dead spot to launch ourselves back into space (or sea) now to two girls this was a task of not only aim but timing a moving ride..
Not even a minute after we managed to scramble back into an empty car without being see, the damned ride E-stopped again!
Go figure.
After a few minutes, I suppose they really did break it this time as the announcement for evacuation came on. After hearing people passing behind our car on their way out from the ride we once again slide over the side and clamly walked right out with the rest of the few souls on Horizons that fateful night without anyone but us knowing what we'd just accomplished.
Oh the good times we had, I just wish we'd had a camera!

Carrie, we'd like to present you with the "Mesa Verde Times Lifetime Achievement Award". This is one bad ass story and you deserve it. Bishop Kyle will bless you at the next get together.

The Little Mermaid

Hey it's Ariel! Even better, it's Spike Tripper but he's just as cute. Spike was interested in seeing the ocean floor so we took him there. Watch out for those tube worms!

As you see it was hard to quickly navigate the rock work and it was dark.

This vacuum cleaner thing works it's way across the bottom collecting little loaves of....something. Seaweed? It doesn't look like kelp but it must be important.

When I was kid we had a thing that looked like that in our pool. It did a great job of clearing our swimming space of loaves of seaweed.

The Red Head- Final

You longtime readers know that ol' Hoot and Chief are a couple of wild cards. We can't leave anything we're interested in alone and that's why we find ourselves in tight situations. Our desire for knowledge drives us and, once again, it may have drove us too far.

We've known the name of our favorite Horizons actor for many months now after receiving a tip from one of our MVT friends. I went hunting, found her, talked to her on the phone, found out some amazing facts.....etc.

Remember that scene in Jurassic Park where Malcolm is asking the guy "You were so into whether or not you COULD do it that you forgot to ask yourselves if you SHOULD do it" or something like that. I feel that way right now. Not to say that I found something horrible. Don't get me wrong. She was very nice to me on the phone but wanted nothing to do with her 80's film career. I get that so I thanked her for her time and let it be.

But......WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I talked to THE redhead on the phone! Same voice! Ran chills right up my god damned spine!!!!!!!!!!

<------------------------- Life Spoiler Ahead. Think twice before scrolling down--------------->

I was a little sad about the phone call. Why wouldn't she want to celebrate the fact that SHE was the Icon of future cute girls in an attraction that millions of people enjoyed? Right? oh well.

Her name is Corinne Cook. She was an actress in California and appeared in a few movies, two before and two after her role in Horizons.

1. B.O.R.N. (1988) (as Corine Cook) .... Jody
   ... aka "Merchants of Death" - USA (DVD title)
2. Getting Straight (1986) .... Ronnie
3. Malibu Hot Summer (1981) .... At the singing contest
   ... aka "Sizzle Beach, U.S.A." - USA (reissue title)
4. Don't Answer the Phone! (1980) .... Rikki

I guess some people wouldn't be very proud of these films. Personally I'm proud of any crazy shit I've been a part of and would celebrate any of it at the drop of a hat. Some people are different than Hoot Gibson. I've located all of these films on DVD and VCR. Classics! Malibu Hot Summer even features Kevin Costner!

I'm sure that some Disney fan group will contact her and put together a fitting tribute ($29.99 on DVD) in the future. Chief and I, well we don't have the time or patients for people who won't talk to us. There are a lot of people who don't want to talk to us.

This one's for you, boys but mostly for Eric_w:)

YES!

YES!

YES!

YES YES!

WOOOOOOO!

I LOVE PINK SILK!

A few minutes on the phone with Hoot Gibson. Is that such a bad thing?

Today

Images compliments of Celebtna.com

REALLY!?

Come on, Disney! WTF?!

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-disney-monorail-electric-shock-20100717,0,156215.story

"To Do" list

Our adventures weren't all unorganized mayhem. Remember, film was a little pricey back in the day and what could have easily been done by a digital camera had to be done with some form of order to save money on film. Chief and I had ongoing lists of things we thought were important to preserve.

The night after every adventure we'd have our pics developed at the Walgreen's one hour photo across the street from Universal. So, we'd drop off the rolls, go home and drink beer, and then go back and collect our hard copy analog shots. The next day we would go to our shitty jobs and spend hours looking for other details we wanted pics of. Our list (an early version below) would change as we deleted the shots we'd covered from the text file.

This version is from pretty early on and features many set pieces and figures that didn't involve being behind the scenes. They were all just a simple jump from our ride vehicle.

It's fun to look back and see that we did a kick ass job of taking care of this laundry list of future goodness:)

Robida

I'm not a big fan of painted flats unless we're talking about Mr Toad's Wild Ride (RIP but you'll see plenty of it on Pirates of the Magic Kingdom).

I thought this Robida scene was somewhat cool though and it did have some neat effects. The music was nothing short of dreamy as well. Let's take a look.

Here's a puzzling scene! This must be where rich old men take their hot young girlfriends for a ride on a blimp! The sequence seems to go: hot girl, old man, hot girl, old man etc.


With a random old bag thrown in to keep this a family attraction.
I saw plenty of pics around of the girl with the huge.....well I'll just say it...CANS!HUGE CANS, folks. I think every Horizons dork from here to Cleveland tried to get a shot of her (I have 47)! If that old man stops walking she'll run him through! Awesome.


Behind the scenes magic. She's in this too. What a coincidence!

Let's catch up

We've awarded a few official positions here at MVT. In the heat of learning and bringing this attraction back to life we understand that we've overlooked a few heroes here. I, Hoot Gibson, will now try to correct and name the OFFICIAL cabinet members of MVT.

- Eric W. Minister of Space Travel affairs

- Kyle. Bishop of Holy Matters regarding the future as it might become religion.

- Menutia Minister of Missing Persons and Submarine rides.

- Joe. Surgeon General of anything medical and of flirting with nurses.

- Jennifer. Den mother. "Wendy" to the lost boys who drink too much at Epcot (EPCOT Center) and to the spirit of keeping us "old school".

The honor we've overlooked, and feel horrible for, is the omission of Jamest, who was the FIRST person to comment on this blog....EVER. James T, we bestow upon you the title of.......Captain and chief of the protective forces at Mesa Verde Times. YOU sir will be the first to enter the Hoot and Chief fall out shelter blog, where we will meet in the event of an online disaster such as us having to shut down or being shut down.

Congrats General Jamest

Jennifer is PISSED

From Mesa Verde Times Pal, Jennifer!



That's just the kind of Horizons devotion we love to see:)

Thanks, Jennifer.

Big one coming ...

Another dose of 1983 media coverage is being scanned.

Just a reminder to the last of the cool people. You can now FLY Hoot and Chief to anywhere in the world so you can treat us to lunch in your country! That's right! If you pay for our travel + expenses YOU can enjoy our ridiculous rants IN PERSON while we eat food !!!!!!!!!!!! Is that an amazing deal or what?!!!!!

You can:

1. Feed Hoot and Chief

2. Talk about Horizons

3. Let us tell you bedtime stories about our adventures.

4. Watch us act like assholes in the airport!

5. Watch and giggle as we try to understand your religion!

6. Tell us that Michigan is another country and we'll believe you!

7. Buy us clothes (or white gowns) and see how we sport 'em as only we know how!

8. Shower us with money so you can see just how fast we can waste it and relieve you from those shallow pressures of "want"!

9. Feed Hoot and Chief and end up famous on our blog!

Our cheap 'lil "poll"

I added this cheap "poll" to the blog at the beginning. Where would you live? Well, Nova Cite wins with Mesa Verde second and Brava Centauri third. We didn't see that happening but our readers have decided. Nova Cite it is!!!!

I always liked Mesa Verde, hence the name of the blog, but would I really like to live in the desert? Probably not. Nova Cite may be more appealing to the average person. Sea Castle and Space would have seemed more dangerous to me..........Chief and I aren't about danger:)

The future may start in Nova Cite. OR West Milton Ohio.

Did you say ice cream?

Let's take another look at the voice activated refrigerator. Here again we find "annoying boy of tomorrow" bothering his poor father just like they do back here in the past.

We know that when the brat says a food word the fridge responds by opening the correct drawer. If he were to say "human head" one would hope that nothing would happen. If so...Dad would be going away for long time, Johnny.

Let's take a behind the scenes look at this food drawer.

WHOA! All of this just to open a drawer? No, my friends. There was much more to it than that even if you never noticed it from your ride vehicle. Remember that Horizons was all about the details. I've come up with this handy diagram for you:

1. This little air cylinder would push the drawer out.

2. The light would come on just like refrigerators here in the past.

3. This high tech looking device would shoot a blast of fog out of the drawer.

4. The duct tape would keep this rig working by providing an ultra strong hinge for the red fog hose. (Universal probably uses Scotch Tape)

It's as simple (and cool) as that and that's pic #195 from my collection! There's plenty more trust me.

As for future parenting, why do you suppose that kid is so rotten? They certainly don't spank their kids but I did find something out.

As a disciplinary measure they tie their children to a tri-apple tree. And at night.........

The Road Runners come.......meep.......meeep.....

Under the Sea

Here's a real treat, folks. Chief and I loved these things! They're the "water ripple" projectors that cast those lovely patterns under the sea. The projector in the foreground is angled down, the farther is up a few degrees. The way the ripples crossed over each other was pure magic.

I think these were in the transition from sea to space. LOOK at all of that cool stuff! Hey! There's a disk on the floor!

Sweet! The disks would rotate in front of the projector lens.

That pattern is great. The disks were heavy and probably 1/2 think. Maybe 3/4. Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about.

"Water Ripple Reflection"

Damn I miss that ride.

More Water Damage

Some of you have asked just how bad the water damage was over the "space" area. The answer is pretty clear in this shot. I was seated in my vehicle when I took this so it was plainly visible to all passengers.




I was trying to get a pic of the airlock door and it wasn't until I got home that I noticed this. Of course, we had to see for ourselves so we made a trip to the catwalk. That's when we discovered the rotten ceiling.

These "skid marks"........ah never mind. I just wanted to say skid marks.

If Disney wasn't willing to fix the show side we new they'd never keep that ride running even with updates.

The Mighty Omniluxe

http://mesaverdetimes.blogspot.com/2010/05/death-of-epcot-center.html

Thank you for backing me up:) It's an honor for Chief and I.

http://www.omniluxe.net/

Time..

Time had us by the balls. Test Track was running almost every night and would open to the public soon. We had progressed to the point were we could stay in the ride as long as we wanted. We were at the top of our game yet the "top" also meant the end.

Chief and I had become masters of our obsession. We had learned how to feed our hunger. It became so regular to us that it was totally comfortable. Comfort, dear friends, often leads to sudden chaos.

I guess a good story is worth nothing if it doesn't have an ending.

Tarzan must have smelled REALLY bad. There's no way Jane would have been with him. The Tarzan stories are nonsense.

Outta Space

Here's another one of those "If this was all I had I'd kill myself" pics. It's not even a good in ride shot but it sets us up for some better material.

this one was a little better but not really. the only good thing I see here is that I was the only dork to shoot a pic of the truss they're working so hard on. It doesn't look like THAT would hold an entire Space Station together but then again I'm a caveman from 2010 not a future man from 2083.

Aaaaahhhhh... from up on the catwalk above the scene, things look much better. Here's a shot down at the astronaut.

This was the highest point in the show building and only from here could one tell just how massive this show building was. It was like looking into the Grand Canyon only better because we knew there weren't bears roaming around.

From way up here we were able to see where the truss connected. We crawled out onto the platform behind those black curtains and realized that there was a mechanism that would lower (?) the lady in the roboty thing for maintenance. The platform creaked and was very wet.

Looking up we can see why. Chief and I noticed that the Horizons show building had a seriously leaky roof. Giant ceiling tiles, water logged, would come crashing down on the catwalk! We found water dripping down on broken pieces and we realized that maintaining this show was no longer important to Disney. The end was coming and quick.

more from Friday night

THUNDER CHIEF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If any one wondered what Chief's last name is...it's Chief......first name, Thunder!


Here, Kyle is holding an actual Carrot from the Nova Cite garden ( a gift from chief and I). Chief is explaining the virtues of the egg shaped plants that grew in the planters right in front of your ride vehicles in that same scene.

Chief, as you see is wearing the same jacket, hat and backpack that he wore on our adventures twelve years ago! I guess I decided to hit myself in the eye because he ROCKS.

Folks, that man named Chief is my best friend. I don't think a man can love another man more. He is my brother yet better than a real brother somehow. He's always been the only man I can trust and, I don't know if he remembers this, is my sons Godfather (even though I'm not Catholic)

Ed is my dear friend. I love him.

Friday night was great!

Friday night at TASTE was amazingly fun! We met some kick ass "Last of the Cool People" like Eric_W and Joe. Hadley's Hope rocked as always and we all drank too much. Kyle and I, even though I was pretty smashed, did a duet of "If We Can Dream It...". (Above)

I had a pocketful of gifts, actual film strips of the Red Head girl, that Chief and I handed out.

More pics soon:)

Hadley's Hope

MVT Cool People unite!

Friday, May 28th, Chief and I will be enjoying "Hadley's Hope" (the only band endorsed by Mesa Verde Times) live at TASTE!

Info here



If you're within range or you're a millionaire and you feel like flying in from South Africa, we invite you to join us and take in this kick ass band. If we all beg hard enough they might even play their cover of "The Universe of Energy" which is nothing but total bliss.

Reasons for coming if you need reasons:

1. LISTEN to incredible music
2. WATCH Hoot and Chief consume alcohol.
3. SEE our wives join us in our drunken foolishness.
4. AFTER the show join us outside with Kyle and the gang as we chat about nothing but Horizons and EPCOT Center until the wee hours.
5. WITNESS the Incredible instrument known as "Century 3".
6. GAZE upon the only amp in the world with the Horizons logo painted on it!
7. EAT a basket full of huge tater tots!


Leave a comment if you'd like to join us!

The Death of EPCOT Center

Here's an excellent observation from Mesa Verde Times member and chief of all future living religious matters Bishop Kyle.

" I have always wondered at what time WDI 'jumped the shark' and ruined what was the mighty EPCOT Center. Here is written proof, published by Disney, that by the late 80's they were done trying to expand peoples
minds and make them think. The paragraph speaks for itself. Unreal. ("Since the World Began: Walt Disney World")


Pieces of Horizons history like this make it all worth it. Enjoy this small bit I can give to you for all you gave to me."

Kyle

I've never been a fan of that book or it's author. I think it's a dismal piece of shit. -Hoot

Hoot loses his mind

Hi folks. Before I lose my mind let me welcome all 202 of you to Mesa Verde Times. I hope the people who are new here get a kick out of it and if you have any questions feel free to write to us at mesaverdetimes@gmail.com. To our old pals, there's more to come so stay tuned.

Ok. Time to blow my stack. Remember how I said we'd be posting news articles from 1983 regarding our beloved Horizons? I was digging through our archives today and found this gem.

This article is from the Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 1st 1983 and whatever hack ass wrote it wasn't credited. We already know that Horizons wasn't a "smash" hit when it opened but this clown thinks he's Mr Funny and tries to poke fun at it only to say nice things at the end. A futile attempt at saving his job as King Douche Bag Intern at the Sentinel.

First he fucks up by assuming that GE developed the attraction. "Few visionaries work for corporations". Walt Disney was a visionary you ass clown and he nor his staff worked for GE.

"offers little that is startling" ....REALLY?? I suppose this shit-hook flew to the Sentinel building in his Hover Lift. He even goes as far as to say that if you saw Star Wars you'd have no need for this attraction.

After this initial bashing he comes to his senses and unknowingly writes about the things he was impressed by. You see, he tried to come at Horizons like "Mr Funny of all cynics" but found himself unable to be anything but amazed after all. Here's the rest:

I believe that this shit head was "born again" 1/4 of the way through writing the article! He tried to be negative but the Horizons experience got the better of him! AND then, and then and THEN, at the end he prays for a hopeful tomorrow! He's glad that Horizons didn't show the horrors of future living. My hate for this slime-slit has turned to love because I know that in this ONE article that he ghost wrote in his very short career as a writer, he found himself.

More to come if we can all stomach it.

Spam

I guess we've reached the point where our blog is popular enough to attract spammers from all corners of the globe! That's really saying something for sure.

I'll try to do a better job of deleting these comments even though I like it when Chinese people tell us that God loves us. I'm not into the selling of handbags as much.

Just don't click on anything Chinese and you'll be fine.

Even The Robots See It

In honor of us reaching 200 followers, here is a new video! heh

Anyways, in the beginning of this shot you get to see Hoot setting up to record Grove Shot 2. And then you get to see me (well, you dont really get to 'see' me, but you know what I mean) crawling around underneath our favorite spot, the grove, in order to get to the control tower monitors. I think this shot is pretty neat because it gives you a feel for what it was like crawling around under there. And by the end of this video, you should have the control tower dialog memorized! :) Enjoy!

p.s. And for those that might have missed our earlier post on it, here is an easy link to one of the other monitors shot from Hoots camera.

Mesa Verde Control Booth

Look at these two crappy shots! They were all I had when Horizons closed and, like I've said before, who would want to go on living if this was the only record of this scene? Not me.

The girl however looks better in these older shots for some reason.

Hmmm.

In the future we will have no need for Plasma, LCD, or HD. Mankind will actually revert back to TV tube technology. It's true. The Orion Company will lead the global market and produce these monitors from corn based plastics.

SEE! Here are three of the four Orion computers at work in the control booth. Sell your Apple stock NOW! Box up your HD flat and mail it to Hoot and Chief at once! I'm serious because in 2083 you're going to look very uncool:(

They have printers in the future too. They got tired of not having a hard copy of images so a printer rebirth began.
Seriously though, here I go again praising the level of detail in this attraction. Simply amazing.

"Average Front Range 4200. Moderate Temp".

I loved Horizons.