Looking down from the second floor bridge onto the Pixar atrium.

Written by Dan Sarto

If it’s Friday, it must be Pixar.  And as most would attest, a visit to Pixar is pretty special.  In no particular order, we met John Lasseter, crawled around the infamous Love Lounge, drank Scotch with Andrew Gordon in the Lucky 7 Lounge, met up with Oscar-winner Ralph Eggleston and his mending broken finger, had lunch with Roger Gould, screened the nominated films for 235+ staff, saw concept art, original models and other visual goodies from several films and talked to Bob Peterson.  And, we bought Girl Scout cookies in the Pixar lobby.  Quite the day indeed.

If it’s every animation fan’s dream to visit Pixar, then at the conclusion of our Friday visit, the fan in all of us was ready to die and go to heaven.  The pouring rain outside did little to dampen our enthusiasm as we piled out of the van and into the lobby.  There, our host, Michelle Radcliffe, coordinator for in-house education at Pixar University, greeted us warmly and after a few introductions, patiently marched us all over the main building, answering all our silly questions and making sure we had a good time. 

The group out front of PDI/DreamWorks. From left to right - Jakob Schuh, Max Lang, Geefwee Boedoe, Ron Diamond and Dan Sarto.

Written by Dan Sarto

Day 2 of our tour started exactly as Day 1 ended – everyone sleeping snugly in their rooms at the Skywalker Ranch Inn.  Each room at the Inn is named after and designed in the style of a noted celebrity – I was in the Frank Lloyd Wright room, Ron was in the Norman Rockwell room, others scattered within Orson Wells, Ella Fitzgerald, Lillian Gish rooms, to name a few.  A fast breakfast of bagels, yogurt and sugary, creamy, caffeiny Starbucks’ coffee drinks, followed by a mad dash to load the car without getting soaked and we were off in the pouring rain towards Redwood City and PDI/DreamWorks. Our stay at the Inn was way too short, but I can honestly say it was truly cool with a capital K.

The Walt Disney Family Museum. And some cars.

Written by Dan Sarto

Like intrepid but warmly dressed explorers venturing into mysterious but GPS-identified territory, our group set forth into the crisp morning air in search of our first tour stop, the new Walt Disney Family Museum.  We caught a break – the rain had stopped, at least for a few hours, leaving behind a beautiful sunny sky.  No traces of the hail that had pounded our motel earlier that morning. Max Lang, Jakob Schuh, Geefwee Boedoe, myself, Ron and his daughter Sara (who is also my niece and our photographer) all drove together.  Teddy Newton drove separately and met us later in the day at Skywalker Ranch.