Thursday, August 5, 2010

Baraboo

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls! Spending a few days near Wisconsin Dells has been fun. Except, we don't really like places like Wisconsin Dells. So, we headed south a few miles to visit the town of Baraboo, which is home to Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. The Circus World Museum in Baraboo has an amazing collection of circus posters and other paraphernalia.

One display of circus wardrobe depicted the opulence of the 1980s. (Remember that?) This costume is from the "King Tut" production, circa 1986.

The museum is home to more than 200 circus wagons, which have been painstakingly preserved. Back in the day, when the circus came to town it was a real event, and these wagons were a big part of the parade.

This wagon, decked in silver leaf, has been dubbed the "Wedding Cake Wagon". Whoever sat on top of this triple decker was in for quite a ride!

Special attention was paid to the wagon wheels. The classic "sunburst" design makes quite a flare as it turns. Anything to add a little bit more excitement to the parade!

This is one of the corner details of a wagon covered in gold leaf. Very shiny! And, a bit scary. Don't know if this wagon would make us want to run to the circus.

This Jimmy Durante car features a wonderful quote from the comedian. "Where can you find one form of amusement that suits grand-dad, ma, pa and kids except the circus." How true. Ha-cha-cha-cha!

Our trip to Circus World also included an amazing magic show and an entertaining tiger show. Between all of the circus acts, we managed to keep ourselves entertained.

Yep, there's something about spending an afternoon at the circus that brings out the kid in everybody!


Yowza! What's that? We'll just leave it to you circus types to figure that one one out.

If you find yourself in Wisconsin Dells with nothing that tickles your fancy, head south to Baraboo and check out the circus. It's still The Greatest Show on Earth.

5 comments:

Chuck and Anneke's RV travels said...

No idea on that last picture. If you like that kind of museum, they have a great one in Sarasota, FL, as well.

Jim and Sandie said...

Loved this post. It brought back lots of good memories from when I was young. Thanks.

Travels with Emma said...

Hope you two got some "cow pies" while in Baraboo! The International Crane Foundation is also located there, and they have quite a large captive breeding program. It's worth a visit. :)

KarenInTheWoods said...

What a fun place! The kids sure enjoyed it when we went there too.
Being from Wisconsin, it's just a day trip for us.



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Karen and Steve
(Our Blog) RVing: Small House... BIG Backyard
http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/

KarenInTheWoods said...

What a fun place! The kids sure enjoyed it when we went there too.
Being from Wisconsin, it's just a day trip for us.



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Karen and Steve
(Our Blog) RVing: Small House... BIG Backyard
http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/