Is The Dragon In You

On Thursday night, I went to the circus with my parents, Erika, and my parent's friends Wayne and Shirley. My parents, Wayne and Shirley stopped by to pick up me and Erika a little after 6:00. I told everyone that it was going to look like we were the first act of the circus with six people piling out of the van. It would look like a clown car and people would wonder how many more were going to come out.

We arrived a little bit before 6:30 which is when the doors opened for the pre-circus show where you could go down to the floor and watch the animals and entertainers up close and personal. The line to get in was very long but my dad in all his excitement managed to find a way to get us up by the door and cut in front of about 100 or 200 people when the doors opened. I think it was the most rebellious thing Erika has ever done in her life.

We made our way inside, found our seats and promptly went to the floor for the fun. We got "The Greatest Show On Earth" temporary tattoos on our hands first; sadly, mine washed off in the shower Friday morning. I was really hoping I would still have it to show off at work. We watched the elephant paint a couple of pictures (once again we didn’t win the picture), watched a horse run around and perform some jumps, and watched some dogs perform a few tricks. Soon it was time for the show to start and so we found our seats in preparation for the show to begin.

This year’s show had a dragon theme and the song they sang to open and close the show had the line “Is the dragon in you?” Needless to say it was a catchy tune and I’m sure Erika and I were not the only ones singing it the next day.

The first half of the show had performances by the Ringling Clowns, of course, and also folks performing stunts on horses which was pretty amazing. I’m pretty sure I gasped a time or two. There were tigers and a lion for the big cat performance. Some of those tigers were pretty fired up; I would not have wanted to be in the cage with them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lion at the circus before; maybe I have and just can’t remember. The guy riding a motorcycle on a tight rope made an appearance again, only this time there were two – one on each side of the arena and instead of one girl dangling below there were two. There were various other acts such as girls swinging around by their hair and girls twisting and turning all sorts of ways in glass orbs. The first part of the show ended with a kung fu performance that was also rather impressive – well, I was impressed at least.

The second half of the show had the flying trapeze which Erika which is one of Erika’s favorite acts. There was the always wonderful display of elephants, this show had eight elephants and of course more performances by clowns. There were also tricks by dogs, cats and horses. As mentioned every time I write about the circus, my favorite act of all, The Globe of Steel (or The Globe of Death as I like to call it) took place in the second half of the show. This year they put EIGHT people in the Globe of Death! EIGHT! I was so impressed! Two years ago they had six and last year I don’t remember how many were in there last year because I didn’t mention the number in my post about last year’s show. EIGHT people! That’s amazing!

It was a great circus once again and I hope a lot of you were able to go by and check it out. Sadly, the circus leaves town tonight (Sunday) and will be moving on to the next city to entertain some other circus lover. I told everyone not to be surprised if I one day joined the circus; the good thing is I’m pretty sure The Tide would be welcomed too. My dad also said he wouldn’t mind running away with the circus. So, I told my mom when she goes on to a better place (not that we want that to happen any time soon just for clarification) that me and my dad would just join the circus. She said she would look down on us and say “there’s my crazy daughter and husband, running away with the circus,” or something like that. I guess I should maybe work on an act. Actually I would just want to be the person who organizes and manages the show. I think I could handle that. It would definitely make for good blogging material!

A Ringling Clown

Getting a tattoo - yes, this photo is from 2012, my dad just likes to wear this shirt to the circus!

I thought this was a pretty horse

Maybe we can teach The Tide and Scout to do this

The Ringmaster

The big cats

My favorite - the elephants