Transylvania…

Transylvania.   The name invokes  shivers, an aversion to the dark, the need for turtlenecks, silver crosses, holy water, and nightmarish visions of zombies, vampires and werewolves.   Somewhere in all of that, the words “theme park” enlarges eyes and engenders responses of WTF?

In a little town called Turda in the Romanian countryside exists the salt mines.  Dating back to the 17th century they are reputed to have the cleanest air on earth, and provided roughly 3 billion tons of salt before it was shut down in 1932.  The mine lay fallow until an enterprising soul suggested it’s newest incarnation in 1992 as a theme park.   Salt mine as a theme park?  Well it has a ferris wheel, a bowling alley, a mini golf course and pool tables to mention a few, but that is not it’s biggest draw.    The biggest draw?  Four hundred feet underground, Salina Turda looks like something out of a Star Wars movie….

Image: always wanderlust

Listening to:  Paul Kim’s cover of Aretha Franklin’s Until You Come Back to Me.
Doing?  Deciding where to go on my impending vacation at the end of September.

abandoned…

Inky: I think I’ve seen this place before….  wasn’t it on that spin off show from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.. <snaps her finger>, what was it..what was it?  <thinking, thinking…>   Angel!  That’s what it was, right?!

I love the doors and the stairwell.

This is the first of a new category on Inky’s Pen..   Abandoned Places.

Image: found at oddstuffmagazine.com its an abandoned cinema in Detroit

vintage

Cigar Man by Dawn Hudson

Inky:  I just really like it.  Those eyes make me smile, he’s up to no good, I just know it.  I wanna help!

once…

Even in the future the story begins with Once Upon a Time..

 

Quote:  Cinder, Marissa Meyer
Image: found at erikryman.blogspot.com

Listening to: the quiet…
Doing:  Its Sunday, raining out, I just returned from town with a bag containing a box of Earl Grey tea, a new book, and some muffins.   Rainy day Sundays…. <sighs>  perfection.

Truth, as always..

Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth.

Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this Universe there shines a star.

But every one of those stars is a sun, often far more brilliant and glorious than the small, nearby star we call the Sun. And many–perhaps most–of those alien suns have planets circling them. So almost certainly there is enough land in the sky to give every member of the human species, back to the first ape-man, his own private, world-sized heaven–or hell.

How many of those potential heavens and hells are now inhabited, and by what manner of creatures, we have no way of guessing; the very nearest is a million times farther away than Mars or Venus, those still remote goals of the next generation. But the barriers of distance are crumbling; one day we shall meet our equals, or our masters, among the stars.

Men have been slow to face this prospect; some still hope that it may never become reality. Increasing numbers, however are asking; ‘Why have such meetings not occurred already, since we ourselves are about to venture into space?’

Why not, indeed? Here is one possible answer to that very reasonable question. But please remember: this is only a work of fiction.

The truth, as always, will be far stranger.

Excerpt: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C Clarke
Image: mimi-na.deviantart.com
Listening to:  Marvin Gaye, Charlie Puth with Meghan Trainor

‘Don’t keep your secrets to yourself, its Kama Sutra show & tell.’

Doing:  Earphones on, head bopping, dancing around, singing….   badly.

 

 

it’s Friday…

Inky:  Because it is Friday Night. Because it tells a story, and the lady smokes a violin, while rocking that red skirt, boots, and top hat!

The Talent:  Lindsey Stirling,  Roundtable Rival

glittering eyes…

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

Sound advice: Roald Dahl
Image: found @ magic4walls.com
Doing? researching a couple of secrets
Listening to: a friend asking me to stop…  and ignoring her.

all the light you know…

When you get to the end of all the light you know and it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.

Quote: Edward Teller
Image: Found @ animalbabies.me

Doing: nothing much but surfing the web
Listening to:  distant thunder

Monday is…

…a sloppy umbrella day, which makes everybody a little blue.

 

Excerpt: Giorge Leedy

Image: Mortimer 2008

Doing: writing..

Listening to:  the stroke of computer keys…

events…

Inky’s Take:  See?  <points up> Its not just me!

Toon:  Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes

Listening to:  The Arena, Lindsey Stirling