A relaxing and easy day for me today. Had a bit of trouble falling asleep last night, not sure, but it could of been the 4 cups of tea I had before midnight. Needless to say it was after 3:00 before I finally fell asleep. Of course once asleep I woke every hour like clockwork to get up and go to the bathroom. Ah the joys of growing older. Of course it means I'll be much more sane about what and when I drink tonight.

    Even with the late night I was up and about at 8:30 this morning for some reason. The usual ritual of comics, crossword, email and fb before deciding to take a walk out around the park. A pleasant stroll along the shore line dipping one's toes in every once in a while. Lot's of birds out today also.... saw two roseate spoonbill's along one of the canals. Of course it was the morning I didn't bother to get the camera out of the truck. Oh well.

    Came back and felt like just hanging out.... so that is what I did. Spooled up the movie 'John Carter from Mars' and watched it again. I actually liked the movie and still do. Not sure why most everyone else panned it... but 'different strokes' as they say.

    Had to run into town again this afternoon. It seems that one of the possible hazards of staying in one place to long is that the ant hoards will find you and invade. Noticed a couple of them two days ago.... and smashed them.... but by today it was way more than I wanted to track down individually and kill. I'm not normally one to use poisons or pesticides... hell I can't even walk down that aisle in a store with out having coughing fits. But I've used a brand of ant traps before that seem to work well and don't seem to have to much effect on my breathing. So I picked up a box of 6, as well as some butter and t-paper, and put all 6 traps out this evening. They are already doing a good job of enticing the little buggers in. I hope to be rid of them in a day or two but will most likely leave the traps out until I get back from St Croix. Just in case they want to try to invade while I'm off on vacation.

    That brings up an interesting conundrum I've been studying on for a couple days now. One of the ladies I was waltzing with on Saturday asked me how, since I'm retired and pretty much foot loose and fancy free, would I ever know if I was on vacation.  Talked it over with several friends since then and the only answer I could think of is that a vacation would be something with a higher anticipation quotation than a regular day. So my trip down the Grand Canyon last year was a vacation. Dance weeks at Morgantown and on St Croix... also vacations. Moving the trailer tomorrow to Fisherman's Cove in McIntosh.... not a vacation... even though I am looking forward to being off again. Will have to think about it more and maybe refine the definition a bit more as time goes on.

    In the meantime there are still dishes in the sink to do and stuff to put away in preparation for tomorrows departure. Here is a second installment of pictures from the road trip down to the Circus Museum on Saturday. Tonight it is all about the 1/2" to 1ft scale model of the circus.

Howard Tibbals scale model of the circus and all of it's people, animals and gear. As seen at the Circus Museum in Sarasota Florida - Jan 26, 2013

Taking up about 3,800 square feet of display space and containing between 50,000 and 60,000 individual pieces this is certainly the worlds largest miniature circus. Based on the Ringling Bros - Barnum and Bailey's Circus. Tibbals named it the Howard Bros Circus after himself after Ringling and B&B wouldn't allow him to use their name because of copyright infringement. Ironic that it is now so prominently displayed in a museum, while about all circus's, is mainly about theirs. It even has it's own building named after him now.

This scene shows the 1st tent to go up after a circus hit town, the Commissary tent. In a circus such as Ringling's more than 3,600 meals had to be cooked and served at least 3 times a day. Each Circus had to have it's own cooks, waitstaff and of course clean up personnel. It's a part of circus life you never think about.... until you get hungry.

Another early tent to go up was the makeup and wardrobe tent. Each performer was generally in charge of their own makeup, but there was also staff to help as well a people to sew, repair and pack all of the costumes used in a show.

A barber shop and hair cutting salon. All the conveniences of home.

The performers entrance into the Big Top was usually located across from the main 'ring' inside and had both an entrance and exit direction. The clowns had their own separate area just outside the doors for the storage of all of their props.

The main entrance into the Big Top, or so you would think. This entrance would actually lead you through the animal holding tent, or menagerie tent, and past the outdoor tent bathrooms before finally leading you indoors to your seat.

The Menagerie tent was not only a holding place for some of the performing animals but was an attraction in it's own right. In an age when public zoos didn't really exist it was quite the experience for people from say, Imperial Nebraska, to get a chance to see exotic animals from all over the world.

Inside the Big Top at last. Usually 3 rings of entertainment with all kinds of stuff happening in between, in front and over them all. The model would switch off the regular overhead lights at regular intervals and go into night mode where all the circus lights would come on. In this scene most of the performers above the floor are also either spinning or swinging on their individual lines.  

At center ring tonight you have the big cat animal trainer.

A high wire act is going on in the 3rd ring.

Some of the 'Big Name' performers in the circus would have their own private tents to stay in. I never did notice a sleeping tent for all the rest but there must of been something for them to sleep in.

Practice rings would also be set up if the circus was going to be in the area long enough.

Prior to going in the Big Top you might part with some of your spare money at one of the many side shows along the midway. There is a story that the ticket wagons/tents here at the front all have full interiors that even include small money boxes with model bill's and coins in them. When asked why he would include things that the public would never see or know about, Mr Tibbals was said to remark that 'He would know'.

Another night scene, this time of the side show area.

A parking lot with period appropriate auto's and trucks. It is said that Tibbals would research each vehicle, each wagon, costume apparatus etc until he was absolutely sure it belonged and that this was the way it looked. I think his notebooks would be a treasure trove of information.

If you had vehicles you also had to have mechanics to keep them up and working. Most could do pretty much anything a regular machine shop could do. In addition they also had a large contingent of blacksmiths, farriers and leather workers to take care of all of the hundreds of horse's, wagons and all of their miles and miles of harness.

I at first thought that the purpose of this whole wagon was to do nothing but cut and shape all of the hundreds of large wooden tent pegs needed to set up all of the tents. On closer examination though it looks like it was actually used as a small pile driver to drive in all of those wooden pegs. Still seems that there was still plenty of opportunity for 4-5 guys with sledges to do the same thing by hand.

The final shot... they had hundreds of feet showcasing the actual circus train, engine and cars as they unloaded and started to set their tent city up. Unfortunately the protective glass barrier surrounding that area also kept reflecting lights and other images back into the pictures. Oh well. Here is a view of just a small part of one part of the diorama. Pretty nice workmanship over all considering nearly everything in the photo had to be scratch built.



I would highly recommend anyone who likes the circus, or models, or who just like off beat things to visit this museum.