During the summer I read the book “Water for Elephants” and then later Lee and I saw the movie. As usual the book was much better than the movie. However, we were both ready to see some of the circus sights in Sarasota.
As Sarasota was a couple of hours south of our rv park we decided to take a mini vacation and stay in a hotel. I was really glad we did as the drive down I75 was horrible…way too much traffic and all going very, very fast!
First stop after arriving in Sarasota was the Ringling Brother Museum.
John and Mable Ringling purchased waterfront property outside Sarasota in 1911 and in 1912 they began spending their winters in the area. In the early 1920’s they began designing and then building their dream home – Ca’ d’Zan (home of John). They moved into the home in 1926 and spent the next three winters there. Unfortunately Mabel died during the third winter.
The home reflects their lavish lifestyle and incredible wealth.
A view of the back deck area..all marble.
Even the boat dock was made of marble!
Our guide describing the dining room.The ceiling looks like inlaid wood, but is actually painted plaster.
A peak into John’s bathroom. The bathtub was onyx from Mexico and there were 4 faucets – hot and cold, fresh and salt water! The floor is marble, of course.
After our tour of the house we walked the grounds over to the circus museum. On the way we passed many Banyan Trees as well as the Rose Garden. This is one tree – the limbs grow down and then into the ground becoming additional roots and support systems for the tree.
The museum is comprised of two buildings. In the first are some of the original trains and vans and billboards of the Ringling Circus.
This was the cannon used for shooting people hundreds of feet. I always thought it worked much like a gun – using explosives. But actually the person was ‘fired’ using a bungee type cord. The smoke and loud gun blast were all fake!
The second building contained a replica of the Ringling Circus as it was set up in town. This replica was handmade and took over 50 years to complete. It is 3800 square feet in area…huge!
As you walked around the replica, there were signs to read describing life in a circus. This is a lot of food for one day!
There is also a 21 gallery art museum and a theater on the grounds. But by now we were exhausted and decided to go back to the hotel and relax. Leaving you with one last thought:
3 comments:
An interesting post. They must have made a ton of money off the circus and it apparently cost a lot more money to keep it running than one would think just judging by the food order.
You guys sure are seeing some fun stuff. I'm going to send you an e-mail tomorrow and see if we can get rid of your word verification.
That looks like a great place to visit. The canon story is interesting.
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