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Friday January 5th was our last day, and we spent it at Disney’s movie studio theme park.  While there are no train rides here, a railroad theme was seen immediately after our arrival in the form of this billboard advertising the old Pacific-Electric Interuban service in California.

Here is an example of movie magic and illusion seen along New York Avenue.

The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular offered thrills as one of Harrison Ford’s actual stunt doubles hurried to outrun the giant boulder chasing him just like in the movie.

Then the reality was shown as two prop men roll the “giant boulder”, which is actualy made of rubber, back to its starting point.

We finally caught our only view for the trip of the “Big Cheese” himself as a parade of Disney movie characters came past our resting point.

In the afternoon we rode the Great Movie Ride, which took us from scene to scene out of famous MGM movies from the past.  The instructions asked that we not do any videotaping or flash photography, which was fine by me as I decided to see what I could achieve with my Canon 5D and natural lighting during the ride.  I got several shots that turned out OK, and these two from the Wizard of OZ were my favorites.  First up is the Wicked Witch of the West, who really did look just like Margaret Hamilton’s classic character.

When the animatronic replica spoke, you could not help but feel the chill that it was alive.  The next scene included the travelling heroes on the yellow brick road nearing the city of OZ.

There was just not enough time in the day to ride all the great attractions here, and too soon it was time for dinner at Mama Melrose’s Ristorante Italiano.  The food was simply excellent, and afterwards we returned to New York Street to see the Christmas lights that were still in place.

Our winding path towards the exit took us past Mickey’s Sorcerer Hat, which was too great a subject to pass up now that it was lit for night viewing and highlighted from behind by a brace of searchlights.  I think this is one of my favorite pictures for the trip.

Lastly before we left the park and our Disney World experience behind, I took one more shot of the Pacific-Electric billboard as it now looked at night.

We all said our goodbye’s at this point, as sadly both groups would be leaving early the next morning for their respective homes.