That’s a Clown Question, Bro

The past few days we have been in a routine. Greg goes for a morning walk since he hasn't recovered enough to run. We both go to the beach for a 4 - 6 mile walk along the water. Return for lunch and then kayak in the afternoon.

Today we tried something different: we decided to spend the afternoon at the Ringling Museum, which is at the estate of John Ringling. The museum consists of several sections: an art museum, a circus museum, their gardens, and their home along the water, which we only viewed from the outside.

By far the most interesting part of the museum was the circus museum. The central exhibit was a 3/4 inch-to-foot scale model of a circus from the 1920s. It was built by Howard Tibbit who was obsessed with the circus. He studied thousands of photographs of circuses to create the model. His model included trains, animals, people, and even folding chairs that actually folded.

In the rest of the circus museum, there were a lot of props and costumes from the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus. They had a horse drawn calliope, similar to the one at the Tri Circle D Ranch at Fort Wilderness. We saw videos featuring some classic circus acts, like lion tamers and acrobats. They had a demonstration of the tight rope that you could try; it was a thin band of metal, just barely above the floor, that is the same 3/4-inch width as the tight rope. We both agreed that there was no way we could walk on an actual tightrope.

The circus museum brought back a lot of memories for us having seen the circus as children. Amy commented about how she would see the circus every summer with Camp Shemesh. She still cannot explain why the circus would come to Phoenix in the summer.

The art museum was less interesting. The majority of the collection was purchased by John and Mable Ringling. Amy commented that the art was purchased from a lot of 10 cent admissions. The art didn’t speak to us. It was mostly European art with religious motifs; the showpieces were huge tableaus, mostly from Dutch masters. We couldn’t fathom transporting such large pieces to the US in days of steamships without air conditioning. It had a similar feeling of Hearst Castle, where a lot of money was spent to show off their money. Definitely another example of the robber baron era.

The gardens were nice. They had several banyan trees. There was a couple having an engagement photo shoot. And they had a few modern amenities like a playground and a food truck for visitors.