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The Sword in the Stone is one of only three fully animated features of the 1960s. Originally released in 1963, it is the last animated feature released in Walt’s lifetime, and the second to last animated film he produced. Filled with contemporary references, comedy, and music, The Sword in the Stone reflects Walt’s unique ability to transpose almost any story into a fantastic visual masterpiece. Walt’s masterful storytelling magically transforms the medieval legend of Merlin the magician, by infusing the classic tale with a dose of his distinctive humor and wit.

© Disney.FILM SCREENINGS

The Sword in the Stone (1963)
Screens daily at 11am, 1:30pm and 4pm (except Tuesdays, and July 14 and 20)
Admission to the film is free with Museum admission, or $7 general; $5 under 17 without Museum admission.

SPECIAL PROGRAMS

Heinrich Kley and Company:  European Influences on Disney
An illustrated lecture with John Canemaker
Saturday, July 14 at 3pm | Theater Gallery
General: $12 adult; $9 under 17
Members: $10 adult; $7 under 17 

Academy Award®-winning animation filmmaker, author, and historian John Canemaker presents an overview of the various European aesthetic influences that found their way into Disney feature films. Canemaker spotlights the contributions of European artists who worked at the studio, discusses the anthropomorphic art of Heinrich Kley and J.J. Grandville, as well as the expressionistic silent films of German director F.W. Murnau, and explores how these sources inspired Walt in the creation of the visual style of early Disney features, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Fantasia.

Golden Gate Bridge 75th Anniversary
The Bridge on the Big Screen: Movies Starring the Golden Gate Bridge
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Saturday, July 21 at 6pm | Theater Gallery
Free on a first-come, first-served basis, tickets available at 10 a.m. 

Come see Kirk and his crew travel to San Francisco in this 1986 American science fiction film screened in the Walt Disney Family Museum’s Fantasia-inspired theater.

Animate Your Night:  Ready, Steady, Go!
Friday, July 27 from 7 to 10pm | Museum-wide
General: $10 adult
Members: $5 adult

Experience the galleries in a whole new light and illuminate your imagination with cocktails, music, performance, film screenings and hands-on art activities. Come eat, drink, and create... and animate your night!

THE PRESIDIO GAMES on the Main Post Lawn
Sunday, July 29 from 11am to 2pm | Main Post Lawn/Presidio
Bring your family for a day filled with fun and games. In honor of the 2012 Summer Olympics, the Walt Disney Family Museum has partnered with Sports Basement, the YMCA, SenSpa, and others to host this special event featuring a bicycle rodeo, a circuits course, hoola-hooping, kite flying, and more. Join in the fun and let the games begin!
11 a.m.:  Opening Ceremony
11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.:  Games and Festivities
1:30 p.m.:  Closing Ceremony
Participation is free.

For a full listing of programs, special events, films, classes, and workshops, please visit www.waltdisney.org.

Janet Joyce with her husband Tom.Janet grew up watching the Wonderful World of Disney on TV, and remembers asking my father if they could take a trip to Disneyland and meet "Mr. Disney".  Altough they were not able to visit the park and that time, she has since made up for lost time. Janet's first visit was in 1969 and, she has enjoyed taking many trips to both Disneyland and Walt Disney World since. Her husband Tom and she have visited the parks many times not only to attend various conventions, but also for their honeymoon. To say the least, they enjoy being in the parks created by "Mr. Disney".

Why did you become a member of The Walt Disney Family Museum? 

When we first heard about The Walt Disney Family Museum, we were thrilled that we might be able to visit it.  And then when more information came out and that we could join the museum, well that sealed the deal.  We signed up as soon as membership became available.  To have something in our area that related to Walt Disney and his life, what a great opportunity. 

What do you find the most enjoyable about your membership? 

It’s hard to pin down the most enjoyable part of the membership.  We have enjoyed all the special events like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, the special talks and presentations by all the various artists and authors.  We have also liked being able to share visits to the museum with friends and co-workers – we give them tickets to go and they always come back amazed at everything they have seen.  Their comments always seem to start out with “There is so much to see and do with all the interactive exhibits.  I didn’t realize there was that much available to learn about Walt Disney, the man, and what he accomplished.  We need to go back.” 

What do you enjoy most about the Museum? 

All the exhibits in the museum.  The family pictures and interactive displays, learning about the Ink & Paint department and how everything comes together to produce each frame of the pictures.  We are always learning something new. 

How does Walt Disney inspire you?

Hearing and seeing everything, inspires me to dig deeper to learn more about the man and to encourage our grandchildren, and me, to reach their full potential.  Don’t let failures dissuade you from going after your dream, whatever that might be. 

What was your first Disney inspiration or memory?

My first memory of Disney was the TV program.  And when Disneyland was being built I wanted my father to move to LA to help build it since he was a carpenter and that would have let me go to the park as well (an ulterior motive).  But, of course, he just smiled at me and said he didn’t think we could move to California just for that.

Thirty two nations were represented in the first exhibition, and around six million people attended, including such notable figures as Charles Darwin, Charlotte Bronte, Lewis Carroll, and George Eliot.

Some of the exhibits featured at the first fair included the world’s biggest known diamond at that time, a precursor to today’s fax machine, and one of the world’s first automatic voting machines.

Since the first Great Exhibition, the concept of the World’s Fair has evolved in the more than 160 years it has been held. The Fair was initially established to focus on progress and innovation in industry and manufacturing. In the early twentieth century, the emphasis of the Fair shifted towards themes centered on cultural issues, and finding solutions to social problems. Then in the late twentieth century, the concept shifted again to focus on what is known as nation-branding; countries used their exhibits to help define their national identities among the other nations of the world.

Today’s Fairs represent a fusion of the three concepts, especially focusing on state-of-the-art technology and addressing issues and topics of our global culture. Expo 2012 is currently being held in Yeosu, South Korea with the theme of “The Living Ocean and Coast: Diversity of Resources and Sustainable Activities.”

The 1964 World’s Fair was held at Flushing Meadow in Queens, New York. The Fair ran over the course of two years, with the first season running from April 22 to October 18, 1964 and the second season from April 21 to October 17, 1965. The Fair featured 140 pavilions spread across the 646 acres that had also served as the site of the 1939 New York’s World Fair. Most of the pavilions were sponsored by United States commercial companies, but 21 states and 36 foreign countries were also represented.

The theme of the 1964 World’s Fair was "Peace Through Understanding" and was devoted to “Man on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe.” During the mid 1960s, society was especially excited about the progress of the burgeoning space age and travelling beyond the known world.   

American corporations invested more than one billion dollars on impressive pavilions meant to boost the public image of their companies. Several American organizations were interested in commissioning exhibits from the innovative designers at Disney, due to the successes of Disneyland attractions. Disney provided four exhibits for the Fair, which were sponsored by Ford, General Electric, the State of Illinois, and Pepsi-Cola.

Developing exhibits for the Fair provided unique opportunities for Walt Disney and his Imagineers.  Walt was interested in testing Disney entertainment with East Coast audiences to inform his decision on whether or not to build another park there. Walt also saw the opportunity for research and development for new attractions that could ultimately end up in Disneyland, but would be paid for on the dime of other corporations for the Fair.

The four exhibits developed by Disney were Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln for the State of Illinois, Carousel of Progress for General Electric, Magic Skyway for Ford, and It’s a Small World for Pepsi-Cola to salute and benefit UNICEF. The Disney attractions were some of the most popular exhibits at the fair; 135,000 visitors per day visited Disney’s four exhibits during the first season alone.

Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln featured an impressive life-sized audio-animatronics figure of President Lincoln giving excerpts from his speeches on liberty, civil rights, and freedom. The figure was capable of more than 250,000 combinations of movement, including motion of the arms, legs, and mouth. The animatronic Lincoln performed for audiences five times per hour, and looked so lifelike that some audience members thought he was played by a live actor.

To achieve the effect, signals were fed from an electronic tape to a transistorized “brain” inside the Lincoln figure. Individual motors were then activated to operate the moving parts. Sound was also fed from the tape, in synch with the mouth movements. The technology used for Mr. Lincoln was a forerunner for today’s motion-capture technology used for characters in films such as The Lord of the Rings, Avatar, and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Carousel of Progress was developed for the General Electric Pavilion to promote the importance of electricity in American society, shown over the course of several decades. For the design, Imagineer John Hench was inspired by a Broadway production of Our Town in which the father figure narrates the story through several generations.

The circular theater was intended to utilize the very limited space and to circulate a large number of visitors quickly. The theater housed a total of six stages, four of which were show stages, and two of which were for loading and unloading guests. The theater seating area rotated around the stages to keep the show stages and audio-animatronic characters stationary. The attraction accommodated 3,600 guests per hour. After viewing the show, guests proceeded to the upper level of the Pavilion to view Progress City, a 160 foot scale model for Walt’s original concept for EPCOT.

The show featured the song “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” written by veteran Disney songwriters Richard and Robert Sherman.

It’s a Small World turned out to be the most challenging attraction of the four due to being undertaken last and having so little time to produce it. The entire attraction was designed, constructed, and installed within just nine months. (Coincidentally, this is around the same amount of time taken to create the Disneyland model on display here at the Walt Disney Family Museum!) 

The nine minute boat ride travelled past familiar miniature scenes such as the Eiffel Tower, a Dutch windmill, and the Taj Mahal. Animated children, animals, and birds sang and danced to the Sherman Brothers theme song “It’s a Small World.” The attraction cost 95 cents for adults and 60 cents for children.

 Magic Skyway carried guests on a journey through the progress of humankind throughout the ages. Visitors boarded one of 160 1964 Ford Convertibles and tuned the radio to any of four languages to hear the fascinating tale of man’s growth and development.

On the attraction, guests traveled through plastic tunnels around the outside of the Ford rotunda for an excellent view of the fairgrounds, and then were taken through the inner portion of the Pavilion. Once inside, the attraction transported visitors to the dawn of time, before progressing to the age of the dinosaurs, and into the world of cavemen. The last part of the journey was occupied by Space City, an imaginative concept of the city of the future. The attraction was narrated by Walt Disney himself.

Aspects of each of the four exhibits were later installed in Disneyland. The Disneyland attraction It’s a Small World most closely resembles the exhibit from the 1964 Fair, though the overall concepts for Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and the Carousel of Progress also became classic Disneyland attractions. Elements from the prehistoric exhibit on the Magic Skyway were installed in Disneyland as the Primeval World, a diorama visible from the Disneyland Railroad between its stops at Tomorrowland and Main Street U.S.A.

The Disney attractions were some of the most popular at the 1964 World’s Fair, and from their successes, Walt gained confidence to move forward on his Florida project. Though he would never see the completion of the new project, the Fair helped lay the groundwork for the ever-expanding vistas of production undertaken by the Disney studio. 

Alyssa Carnaham

Museum Educator

The views and opinions expressed in the "Wang and Muller, Watching Movies" series are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position, thoughts, and opinions of The Walt Disney Family Museum, Walt Disney Family Foundation, or any of its affiliates.

© Disney

Many guests will no doubt journey to Walt Disney’s Original Magic Kingdom, Disneyland, after experiencing all of the new and exciting attractions and experiences at Disney California Adventure. We at the Walt Disney Family Museum would like to highlight some of the must see Disneyland attractions guests can still experience today that tie directly back to Walt Disney himself.

In celebration of summer, which officially starts today, we are please to present to you...

Disneyland - The Quintessential Classics

The Must See Attractions that made Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom

Internationally known as "The Happiest Place on Earth"!

Our First Stop: The Disneyland Railroad.

© DisneyThe Disneyland Railroad may be Disneyland's greatest representation of Walt Disney at the park. Walt was a lifelong train enthusiast and some form of a train ride was included in the earliest conceptual drawings of Disneyland. Walt considered using his own 1/8^th scale miniature backyard train, the “Lilly Belle”, as an attraction at the modest Mickey Mouse Park he originally planned to build adjacent to the Disney Studio in Burbank. As his plans for a theme park outgrew the Burbank plot, so did the scale of his railroad, 5/8ths scale to be exact. In designing his park, Walt said that he wanted Disneyland “to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded by a train.” The two opening day locomotives - the C.K. Holliday and E.P. Ripley- as well as the passenger cars were all built at the Disney Studio in 1954. Due to its popularity with guests a third locomotive, the Fred Gurley, was added to the Disneyland Railroad in 1958 and a fourth, the Ernest S. Marsh was added in 1959.

Guests taking a “Grand Circle Tour” of Disneyland today experience an overview of the many lands of Walt’s park. The grand finale of the tour is a visit through the Grand Canyon Diorama and a trip back in time through the Primeval World. The Grand Canyon Diorama, opened in 1958, represents the view from the canyon's southern rim and is painted on a 306 foot piece of seamless canvas. The diorama features taxidermy animals including mountain lions, bighorn sheep, wild turkeys, and a hard to spot armadillo. Primeval World, added in 1966, is home to the audio-animatronic dinosaurs from the Magic Skyway attraction Walt Disney designed for the Ford Pavilion at the 1964/65 New York World’s Fair. 

A ride on the Disneyland Railroad is a great way to start or end a fun filled day at the park. Make sure to take some time to look at the historic displays, photos of Walt, and the replica of his backyard train, the “Lilly Belle”, located inside Main Street Station. The actual “Lilly Belle” is of course on display in Gallery 9 at the Walt Disney Family Museum.

For our next installment, we’ll continue our look at the quintessential “Walt” attractions at Disneyland by spending a few “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln"!

Joseph Titizian is an inaugural member of The Walt Disney Family Museum volunteer team. He is a regular contributor to this blog, and has developed continued education courses for the volunteer team. A lifelong Disney fan, Joseph has previously worked at Disneyland Park and Pixar Animation Studios. 

Bon Voyage! screens daily throughout the month of June at 1:00pm and 4:00pm (except Tuesdays). Tickets are available at the Reception and Member Service Desk at the Museum, or online by clicking here.

© Bill Graham Archives, LLC. All Rights Reserved

Bill Graham was the impresario responsible for booking bands for the venue for many years, and for establishing the “Fillmore Sound.” The auditorium became the epicenter for psychedelic music and counterculture which corresponded with the social phenomenon “Summer of Love.” Graham was also responsible for commissioning local artists to create posters advertising the concerts held at the venue. Among these artists were Rick Griffin and Wes Wilson, whose posters featured colorful and distorted images and text, a style iconicized in 1960s culture.    

In other cases, artwork was repurposed from other sources for the posters, as was the case for the work of a German artist named Heinrich Kley. Kley was an illustrator and painter born in Germany in 1863, and was a favorite artist of Walt Disney’s. His work is currently on exhibit in the Theater Gallery of The Walt Disney Family Museum.

Kley’s illustrations were featured on a number of posters and handbills for the Fillmore Auditorium and the Matrix, a club also located in the Fillmore District. Kley’s work can be found on posters advertising performances by such 1960s bands as Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Turtles, the Grateful Dead, the Wildflower, and Moby Grape.

The artwork of Heinrich Kley was an insteresting choice to be featured as the imagery for the 1960s music scene. Though his work heralded from an earlier generation, the elements of wit and fantasy evident in his illustrations make for a fascinating addition to 1960s styling of the ads. Just as the style of the music and the spirit of the Fillmore sought to challenge the accepted cultural precepts of the era, Kley’s work had similarly gone against the grain of societal values of his own time. His artwork often confronted human imperfections and glorified folksy and even disturbing subject matter, starkly contrasting the values of German society in the first decades of the Twentieth Century. The German ruling class, which came to power following the First World War and leading to the Second, highly regarded the ideals of classicism, human strength, and cultural might. Kley’s work challenged these values.

In the 1990s, the Kley posters were sold to music merchandiser Wolfgang’s Vault,  a company dedicated to collecting and archiving music recordings and memorabilia. The company was named for Fillmore impresario Bill Graham (whose given name was “Wolfgang”),  and prints of vintage poster art, including the Kley illustrations, can be ordered through the company’s site.

Discovering this unexpected and interesting tie between the Walt Disney Family Museum and our San Francisco community, between several key people who never actually met, (i.e. Walt Disney, Heinrich Kley, and Bill Graham), reminds me of how relevant the collection and the story of this Museum still are today.  We continue to find and ascertain connections between the legacy of Walt Disney and the greater communities of art, entertainment, and culture. The opportunities to learn and be inspired are endless, and allow us the keep exploring in many different directions. 

Alyssa Carnahan

Museum Educator

© Disney

In the film Bon Voyage!, Harry and Katie Willard have had to postpone their plans for a dream vacations for nearly twenty years because of family and work responsibilities. Walt Disney was no different. Other than a short honeymoon in 1925, Walt had not taken a vacation since arriving in Hollywood in 1923. In the fall of 1931, on doctor’s orders, Walt and Lilly set out for their first vacation together so that Walt could relax and recuperate from the stresses of running an ever growing studio operation. In a story published in the Kansas City Times on October 16, 1931, Lilly called their vacation a “gypsy jaunt,” taken on doctor’s orders. Lilly said, “It’s great fun just to start out, without knowing in advance exactly all of the places you’re going to see.” Walt and Lillian’s jaunt would take them across the country and to Havana, Cuba. Along the way they visited the Grand Canyon, Kansas City, Washington, D. C.; and Miami. The Disneys departed Havana on November 3^rd, 1931 aboard the luxury cruise ship, the SS California, sailing through the Panama Canal and arriving at the Port of Los Angeles on November 14, 1931. 

Walt and Lilly would take several cruises to Hawaii and Europe throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s, but their first family trip to Europe with their daughters Diane and Sharon would take place in the summer of 1949. Walt was filming his first all live action film “Treasure Islands” on location in England. A European vacation would give him the opportunity to show his daughters England, Ireland and France as well as supervise the films production. The Disney family boarded the RMS Queen Elizabeth in New York in June of 1949 for a five week European adventure.  Diane Disney Miller recalled that she and her sister Sharon (age 15 and 12 on that first voyage) “enjoyed the evening cocktail time before dinner. We all dressed up and often there were other interesting people aboard who would stop by and chat with my parents. I learned to love sardines and anchovies at that time, because I was always really hungry for dinner, and all the hors d'ouvres were composed of those kinds of things.” As first class passengers, Walt enjoyed treating his family to the finest accommodations available onboard, but he did not enjoy the pretentiousness that accompanied those accommodations. Diane remembers that, “On one voyage on one of the Queens we dined in a small, very exclusive dinning room every night.  I remember the Sarnoff family - the General, his wife, Robert and his wife - shared that room with us... maybe one or two other tables.  It was too quiet for dad, I think, and he thought up silly things to do that Sharon and I enjoyed tremendously.” One night at dinner, Diane remembered that Walt turned to her and said, "Accost me!" "What??" I replied.  "Accost me!"  I did my best accosting move and he whipped out his table knife that he'd concealed in his coat sleeve... "A HA!"  He did this several times on that voyage.”   Diane remembered that to break up the quietness of the dining room Walt taught the girls “to move your fingers around the rim of your water glass, making a lovely chime-like sound.  With different levels of liquid you would, of course, get different level of tone, and could create some lovely harmonies.  I remember fondly, with a smile, those elegant shipboard dinners.” In these regal surroundings, Walt was not a powerful studio head hobnobbing with his elite fellow passengers. He was just a father having fun with his two little girls.  

Walt and his family would return to Europe for the next three summers aboard luxurious ocean liners like the RMS Queen Mary and the USS Independence and USS Constitution. Walt would oversee the productions of films like “Robin Hood and His Merrie Men” and “The Sword and the Rose” and continue to share the sights of Europe with his family. Diane Disney Miller remembered that “Dad did enjoy his time shipboard, and kept very busy with any activity that they offered... shuffleboard... medicine ball workouts... On one return trip when we left for home from the south of France on the American Lines... the USS Constitution, or the USS Independence, dad became very friendly with a group of Catholic priests who were returning from a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.  They were having a glorious time, and he enjoyed their company a lot, playing some serious shuffleboard with them.” And while Walt enjoyed the transatlantic crossings, Diane remembered that “he was very ready to disembark and get on with business when his destination had been reached.” 

In a letter to his sister Ruth Disney Beecher, Walt shared the joys of his 1952 European Family Vacation: “We had quite a trip to Europe this summer—sometimes I wonder how I did it—I mean looking after five women for 10 weeks—baggage, passports, reservations and what have you. In addition to my own three, we took with us Lilly’s niece, Majorie Bowers, and a girlfriend of Diane’s, Karen Bergstrom.

We left here June 21 spent a week in New York and sailed on the Queen Elizabeth July 1. While on the boat, Diane and Karen got the idea that they would like to see the Olympic Games, so arrangements were made and they flew from London to Helsinki and were there for 10 days. They had a wonderful time. The rest of us stayed in London and while there spent a weekend at Stratford-On-Avon, and another weekend up in Scotland. Then we all flew to Paris, Diane and Karen coming in from Helsinki. We stayed there the better part of a week and then went to Switzerland by train, making our headquarters by Lucerne. Everybody loved Switzerland—scenically, it’s very beautiful and it’s clean and things are growing everywhere, yet only a small percentage of its area is productive because so much of the country is mountainous. There’s no impoverishment and the people are happy.

We went into Germany by automobile and stayed at Munich. Then we drove through the Bavarian Alps into Austria and spent some time at Salzburg and Innsbruch, returning to Lucerne. Another wonderful spot was Zermatt, high up in the Swiss Alps, which seemed to be completely a bloom with yellow crocus. From here we went on to Geneva and while there they were holding their annual fete called 'The Battle of Confetti.' It was very picturesque and exciting. At night everyone was in costume and confetti was everywhere. During the day there was a parade which consisted of beautiful floral floats similar to your Rose Festival. We enjoyed it very much.

At this point, I flew back to London to see how production was getting along on The Sword and the Rose, and Lilly and the girls went on to Italy, visiting Milan, Florence and Rome, where I met them again, and then to Naples where we boarded the American boat, the Independence. This is the long way home, 10 days to be exact. About half way across we touched on the fringe of a hurricane, which was pretty exciting and things got pretty rough. Can’t say that the girls enjoyed it, but they did live through it, despite their seasickness. I seem to be immune to such stuff. All in all, the trip was a complete success.”

In the coming years the added responsibilities of television production and Disneyland would cause Walt to rely on the speed and convenience of air travel on his trips to Europe. But like the Willard family in “Bon Voyage!”, the Disney family would always have a lifetime of  happy memories of their loving father and the grand ocean voyages and European adventures they shared together.

Joseph Titizian is an inaugural member of The Walt Disney Family Museum volunteer team. He is a regular contributor to this blog, and has developed continued education courses for the volunteer team. A lifelong Disney fan, Joseph has previously worked at Disneyland Park and Pixar Animation Studios. 

Bon Voyage! screens daily throughout the month of June at 1:00pm and 4:00pm (except Tuesdays). Tickets are available at the Reception and Member Service Desk at the Museum, or online by clicking here.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Creation of a Classic features more than 200 works of art including conceptual drawings, early character studies, detailed story sketches, and animation drawings. Also featured are delicate thumbnail layout watercolors, meticulously rendered pencil layouts, rare watercolor backgrounds, colorful cels, and vintage posters all illustrating how Walt Disney advanced the creation of an entirely new art form. 

Gabriella Calicchio, the Museum’s CEO comments, “I am extremely pleased to present Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Creation of a Classic as the museum’s first major special exhibition. As the film turns 75, the exhibition showcases Disney’s ongoing significance and relevance on contemporary culture. I am truly inspired by Walt’s life and work, not only for the breadth of his creativity and for his accomplishments, but for his fundamental belief in the power of the imagination, his unwavering tenacity, and the visionary genius he became by following that belief. Disney’s legacy is limitless and I hope the exhibition will ignite creativity and imagination in all of us.”

Walt Disney’s daughter Diane Disney Miller shares, “My Dad was completely and intimately engaged in this film from start to finish. It was the first of its kind to have the depth of character, careful attention to story, original music that helped tell that story, and superb artistry. It was, and is still, a masterpiece and I look forward to sharing it with our community and beyond. I hope visitors come away being inspired just as my Dad hoped to instill creativity, innovation, and imagination in the artists he worked with.” 

We encourage our readers to frequently come back to our blog for more details and a deeper look into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as we prepare for our very exciting, new special exhibition!

© Disney.If you have yet to make your summer vacation plans here are some ideas from our Birthday Duck, Donald.  An intrepid traveler, Donald Duck has explored the world and seen the sights.  Maybe you are thinking of a Hawaiian Holiday for your summer get away.  Donald and the gang traveled to Hawaii in 1937 and enjoyed many of the island experiences.  With great surf and lots of sun you can’t go wrong with a day at the beach.  But, if like Donald you find your grass skirt ablaze, remember Stop Drop and Roll. 

If a tropical retreat isn’t what you are in the mood for maybe an afternoon on the links would be more your speed.  Donald’s Golf Game isn’t quite up to par, but that may be due to his club selection rather than his skill.  Choosing the right club may not lower your score, but it can lighten the mood… Especially if you don’t watch what your caddy hands you.

Sometimes though, you really need to get away from it all.  If that is the case for you, maybe getting back to nature with a little camping is what you need.  Donald’s Vacation in 1940 wasn’t quite what he was expecting but did teach us about boating and camp safety.  If you’re not careful you may get an up close look at the “backside of water.”  Also remember to properly secure your provisions to protect them from marauding bears and chipmunk.  Most importantly, though, as Donald aptly demonstrates, take only pictures and leave only foot prints.

Whatever your plans are for the summer have fun!

Reed Milnes

Volunteer Services Coordinator