Road Trip – Circus Fun in Sarasota, FL - 1/14/06

Today we rented a car and drove up to Sarasota to visit the Ringling Art Museum and estate. The art museum has been open since 1930 with about 600 master's pieces from around the world. There is a beautiful estate home built in 1924 open for touring – great to see how the really wealthy lived – a rose garden that was started in 1909. The best part for us was a brand new building called the Tibbals Learning Center. This is a two story structure devoted exclusively to the history of the circus going back to Greek times. On the first floor a miniature circus display of what a circus was like 80 years ago when they came into town by train and marched thru town....does anyone remember this ??? It includes miniatures of everything a traveling circus would have from all the train cars it took to load up the animals, people, wagons, tents and supplies to all the tents used for the shows and all the backstage tents and equipment. $15 per person and worth every penny.