Day 268 - Road Trip to Sarasota
Day 268: Thursday, January 19th: We had been hearing good things about the John and Mabel Ringling Museum and home in Sarasota, FL for years. Although we had visited the Sarasota area many times, we never had toured the 66-acre facility.
Today we joined friends Dick and Gayl (Starsong) in their car and drove the 80 miles to Sarasota to see it all. There are several buildings on the property, including the Ringling mansion,"Ca d'Zan" (House of John), the Tibbals Learning Center, the circus museum and the huge Ringling Art Museum. There are also three dining facilities and numerous gardens.
The first impressive view is of the main entry to the property:
We first visited the main Circus Museum. It had actual circus equipment and memorabilia from the Ringling Brothers Circus. This calliope is the real thing:
There were displays of some of the most famous clowns:
The original "bandwagon" had been meticulously restored:
The famous clown, Lou Jacobs, was about 6 feet 5 inches tall. He would fold that large frame into this little car and drive out into the arena, do all sorts of maneuvers and finally climb out of the car to the amazement of the audience. The car had a small lawnmower engine in it. No, this is not a trick picture; Bill is about two feet from the car:
Jacobs had an even smaller car; amazingly he could get into it and drive away!
On Thursday mornings the local woodcarvers work in the woodworking shop making circus items and repairing and restoring the artifacts. Here they are working on a tiger carousel animal:
The industrial skyline of Knoxville is exactly accurate:
There are models of every aspect of the circus. There is the "Hotel," the dining hall:
The "back lot," comprising the barber shop, the blacksmith shop, etc.
The entry to the "Big Top…":
Which leads to the menagerie first, of course (there are over 200 model animals in the display):
And that leads to the Big Top itself:
Oh! We forgot to mention that many of these scenes are animated!
We were told Tibbels worked over a period of fifty years to build this model. It was truly amazing! And it just opened last week - perfect timing for our visit.
After touring the circus museum buildings we all went for lunch at the "Banyan Café." You can tell where the name comes from. That's Gayl and Dick (on phone) waiting with Ruth:
Next on the agenda was a tour of the Ringling home, Ca d'Zan:
The home is built to look like a Venetian building and is very opulent. This is the ballroom ceiling:
The ceiling and chandelier in the living room. The chandelier came from the original Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York:
A better look through the ceiling skylights:
This is taken looking at the south side of the house. Sarasota Bay is to the left (the rear of the house):
Overall the house was also amazing although not to our taste.
Last stop of the 66 acres was the huge art museum. Mabel and John began collecting objects d'art as they toured Europe looking for circus acts. The museum houses many of their prized acquisitions.
This is the impressive entry into the museum:
The building is built around a large courtyard displaying many sculptures. That's David at the far end. For size reference there are two people walking to the left of David's feet:
Sadly the interior of the art museum was too dark to allow for any pictures. Suffice to say there were many hundreds of works of masters on display.
At one time, John Ringling was the tenth wealthiest man in the United States. Touring his home and this museum, one has no trouble believing this.
We stopped for an Italian dinner on the way home. It was an end to another delightful day. If you are ever in Sarasota, go to this facility and plan to spend the day there.
Position tonight: N26 38.488 W081 52.580
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