#5 Ryan's View and the Circus

Our 7 year old grandson, Ryan, has a great imagination and an eye for details that often surprises us. So we asked him to take a few pictures and send them to us to use in our travel blog. Here, along with his captions, are Ryan’s pics:

"It looks like the melky way"

"this is my favorite one"

We think these photos prove that sometimes you find the most interesting things in your own back yard! Thanks, Ryan!

Lake Manatee is directly west of the town of Bradenton and about 15 miles from the ocean. So the other day when we needed to do some laundry we thought we were lucky to find a laundromat about half way to the ocean right along the highway. What we didn’t realize was that it was in a pretty scary part of town. We decided that next time we needed to wash clothes, we would find a different laundromat where we didn’t feel we had to keep one eye on the laundry and one on the car.

We found that other part of town on our way to the John and Mabel Ringling Estate and Art Museum. Driving south from Lake Manatee, what started out as farmland and older residential lots pretty soon morphed huge golf courses and major new developments, like Lakewood Ranch below.

If there was a real estate bust around this neighborhood, we didn’t find it. When you think about it, its probably just like the Chicago area where a few miles can make quite a difference in the cityscape.

John Ringling was one of seven brothers, five of whom ran the world famous circus. In the mid twenties John was one of the richest men in the world, and his 30 room Sarasota mansion, Ca’ d’Zan, built on his Gulf property in Sarasota, matched his reputation. We didn’t take the tour of the mansion, but it sure looked impressive from the exterior. Sitting on the back terrace, we could only imagine what it would have been like back in the '20's, sitting there overlooking the gulf or stepping aboard your yacht moored at the doc.

 We caught this scene. Probably a professional shoot?

 An avid art collector, Ringling built an art museum on his oceanfront property and populated it with many Renaissance and more recent paintings and other works of art. Considering it is a private collection, the art museum was quite impressive, and included a number of works by Rubens and many of his contemporaries.

On the grounds were a rose garden and a hidden garden where John and Mabel Ringling are buried.

A highlight of the estate was a miniature (1/2 inch to the foot) re-creation of the 1909-1938 era Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Mostly built by craftsman Howard Tibbals, the recently expanded exhibit became part of the museum in 1948. It includes numerous circus tents, animals and many hundreds or even thousands of highly detailed figures.

The estate was willed to the State of Florida on John Ringling's death in 1936 and like many such public enterprises today, admissions are a bit pricey, costing us $45.  

Although RV camping is pretty comfortable, there are a few chores that have to be attended to. One that is not the most pleasant is dumping our "gray" water (sinks, shower). Camped in a state park that only has water and electric at the site, and since we are camped in the same place for two weeks, dumping gray water without moving the RV requires a few trips to the dump with an intermediate tank. Here is a pic of Anne driving the honey wagon, something she always wanted to do!

Any guess who always has to do the "dirty work" - emtying the tank?