The leaves are turning and starting to fall in my part of the world so we took a car trip to catch some color. The weather was perfect and the sky was an amazing blue.
Sunday country drive through South Central Pennsylvania.
We came to York Furnace and Indian Bridge Park and got out to stretch our legs and I took a 360 of the view…
180 looking over the water to the trees beyond.
I used my Iphone camera with the HDR on. Then I combined the images in Photoshop. I like how you can tell where one photo starts / ends. And left that in on purpose.
180 looking back at the shore and boat ramp.
That’s about it for this little journey.
Are the leaves turning where you live? What’s your favorite thing about fall?
Advertisement for Beauty and the Beast (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
WHO: The Beast
FROM: Beauty and the Beast (Disney version)
BY: Linda Woolverton, Roger Allersetal et al — Writers Alan Menken — Music, Howard Ashman — Lyrics.
WHEN RELEASED: 1991
PROS: Under his furry, grumpy exterior he’s really a kind, warm person.
CONS: he’s hot-tempered and tends toward self loathing and self-pity. At the beginning of the tale he was also selfish, vain, and judged other by the way they looked.
BEST SHINING MOMENT: Letting Belle go to her father even though it means he’ll always be a Beast.
LEAST SHINING MOMENT: Imprisoning Maurice.
WHY I CHOOSE HIM: I like the Beast’s story arch. He learns something in the course of 84 minutes that changed how he saw himself and how he saw the world. He learned to love, and was willing to let that love go if it meant her happiness.
Honestly I didn’t need the last five minutes of the show. I’m glad [SPOILER ALERT] Belle saved his life. But for me he could have stayed in Beast form. He’d already proven that he was beautiful on the inside. He didn’t need to transform outwardly. BUT I do think the absolute glee that he feels for his friends after their transformation is a lovely touch.
I’m somewhat jaded when it comes to Disney. It seems that the Mouse is rather ham-fisted in the way it monopolizes children’s entertainment. They often opt for a watered down, sugared up, “what-will-sell-best” version of a story over the original classic (Winnie the Pooh, anyone?) But with Beauty and the Beast they got it right. It’s not the original French fairytale, but it is a lovely version of the story and it is told with depth and … well… beauty.
A frame from the famous “Beauty and the Beast” ballroom dance sequence. Using Disney’s CAPS software, the traditionally animated characters of Belle and the Beast are combined with a rendered computer-generated background to give the illusion of a dollying film camera. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The movie was the first animated featured film ever nominated for an Oscar. Although it didn’t win Best Picture, Beauty and the Beast did win Best Original Score and Best Original Song. It was made into a Broadway musical in 1994.
Old King Cole pointed the way to adventure… Now he points the way to high finance.
Thank god the Enchanted Forest is being plowed under to make way for a bank! Because, really what the world needs more of is less creative, imaginative play spaces and more banks… and pharmacies. We just don’t have enough of either of those.
Why, just the other day I was looking out the car window and thinking “you know what I haven’t seen in the last 2 blocks? A bank or a pharma — no wait there’s one. And there’s another. And another…”
Hmmmmmmm I guess we’re actually pretty good at the bank-to-people / pharmacy-to-people ratio after all. [I know they are necessary establishments, but I just don’t think we need to pave every bit of green space and convert every park to build one. Enough with the Bank/Pharmacy arms race, already. I think we know who already won.]
What we don’t have enough of are places where people (especially little people) can explore their imaginations and get lost in their creative whims.
That’s what the Enchanted Forest was. It was a “Storybook land where fairy tales came true!” (according to a vintage ad for the theme park.) I know that was the case for this little 1960s era Baltimorean girl.
The once popular 20-acre theme park located at the corner of Route 40 and Bethany Lane hosted families for decades after opening in August of 1955. [Ellicott City Patch.com]
The Rainbow Slide
For just $2.55 admission per person your family could explore the park all day. The rides, like the Mother Goose “train” were $.40 a piece. There were things to look at (story book tableaux any one?) and things to do (like the awesome Rainbow Slide.)
The Mother Goose ride. I always wanted to ride on the cute little baby black duck in the back. He was the BEST!
Alas, the drawbridge entrance to the Enchanted Forest was closed for the last time in 1989 when a developer bought the property and built a shopping center on part of the lot. “There were attempts to re-open the theme park in the 90s, and a community-led effort to preserve the fiberglass structures at the site in the woods fell short.” [Ibid]
Entropy and greed are evidently more powerful than the magic of childhood.
Restored crooked house at Clark’s Elioak Farm
Some of the buildings and iconic statues were saved. The good folks at Clark’s Elioak Farm (not far from Enchanted Forest’s Ellicott City location) acquired dozens of them
In 2005, the owners of the property, Kimco, agreed to allow many of the structures to be moved to Clark’s Elioak Farm in Ellicott City. Clark’s, with the help of community members, hauled items including Mother Goose, Papa Bear, the giant Mushrooms, the Gingerbread Man, Wille the Whale, the Little Red Schoolhouse and many others to the farm, where they are now maintained and preserved.[Ibid]
But others languished beside and behind the strip mall. Unfortunately the amusement park seemed to have used “First Little Pig Building and Supply Co.” when it constructed the buildings, and the modern day equivalent to the pig’s straw house, fiberglass, is just not holding up. They are all suffering from neglect and age. And the mightiest of them all, Cinderella’s castle is crumbling.
My childhood dreams… literally crumbling. Cinderella’s Castle, as viewed from the front, circa 1970; and from the back, circa 2009.
The most depressing 9 minutes and 28 seconds of my day was watching this YouTube Video showing what the Enchanted Forest looks like now…
But then I found this site that shows the work being done at Clark Elioak farms …
The Three Bears House is one of the newest rescued houses from the Enchanted Forest now “living” at Clark Elioak Farm.
The entrance to the Enchanted Forest and the new entrance to Clark Elioak Farms.
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Please note: None of the photos on this post are mine. I found them on Pinterest. Alas they did not have identification. If you see YOUR photo I would be very happy to give your credit. (Or, if you wish, remove it from the post.)
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