Ringling Museum

Today I went with Holden's class as a chaperon for a field trip to the Ringling Museum in Sarasota. For those of you who didn't grow up here or in the circus, the circus used to winter right here in Florida. There is a draw bridge in Venice named the Circus Bridge because the circus animals used to live right near it in the winter. The trapeze is still up and used on occasion. I would love to try that some day (better make it soon since I am not getting any younger). Anyway, there is a museum now on the property of Mable and John Ringling and that is what the class toured. There were some pretty disappointed kids (Alayna included) that they didn't actually get to see the circus performance! Luckily there were lots of neat things to do and they were quickly distracted!
This is a miniature circus model created by an artist whose name I don't remember and it took him 50 years to complete it! This is only a tiny fraction of all there was:
These precious girls were my charges for the day: (from left) Rachel, Alayna, Jillie, Aubrey, Harmonie, and Vanessa. They were so good about staying together and holding hands. They were easy to find!After some looking around, lunch in the park (it was a BEAUTIFUL day), wandering through the rose gardens, playing red rover, checking out the outside of the mansion where the Ringlings lived (WOW), it was time to head back. BUT, when the driver tried to start the bus, it wouldn't turn over and a loud buzzing came from the back...lets check the battery cables (conveniently located just outside my window):Nope,battery cables nice and tight, check under the hood (by the way, yes, I did take some heat for taking pictures of this, but they cooled off when I explained that this was clearly blog worthy)The raising of the hood reminded the driver of the safety latch on the back door. He checked it, found it to be slightly out of place, relocked it and it fired right up. We arrived back at school JUST in time!