Weekending it: Circus Extreme!

So the main event for Saturday was the Ringling Bros. Circus.  Dan and I went to the circus two years ago when we were dating and it was a fun time.  This year I not-so-subtly hinted that I wanted to go again.  So Dan got us tickets (it's actually a super affordable date if you don't get roped into all the stadium buys). 

We walked from our hotel to the Barclay's center (stopping for shopping) and grabbed lunch at Subway.  I was thirsty when we got there so we got sucked into spending $6 for a tiny cup of lemonade.  At least the $8 box of popcorn was fresh. 

When you arrive early there are a bunch of activities for kids in the ring so it was fun to watch a bunch of clowns and kids dancing to "Shake it Off."

Overall the show was great and everything was very fairly well coordinated. The theme of the show was "Extreme Adventure" and the Ring Master was supposedly trying to set-up the scene with this elaborate choreographed number about traveling the world and seeing all these wonders.  So each act in the show was meant to signify a different location like the acrobats were meant to look like mermaids, the Mongolian strong men were obviously from Mongolia, the camels were from the Middle East, etc. etc. 

Tightrope walkers

Human cannon

Dan and I were talking about it later that the whole theme was hard to follow as adults so all the kids probably missed the point especially because they all had those light-up spinning toys and wands and swords that were available for purchase for an affordable $24.  Oh and cotton candy and snow cones for $14.

See her at the mouth of the cannon about to fly out?

Dan's favorite number was the elephants and I really like the guy that ran around on the spinning wheel.  At one point he was jumping rope on the outside of the wheel and got his foot caught on the rope and nearly fell.  It was so scary my heart was pounding.  But he recovered like nothing happened.  The trapeze people were good except they didn't do any catching which seemed weird.  The tight-rope walkers stood on top of each other three high which was pretty awesome too.  We also liked the poodles which were super cute and really good performers.  

Neon trapeze people

Spinning wheel

We both liked the slack-line performers the trampoline number was as good as we remembered.  Basically there are two trampolines set-up on either side of a 20+ foot tall wall frame and they jump up and land on the top and fall over onto the other side to bounce back up on the other trampoline.  It's hard to explain but looks awesome.  The slack-line guys are bouncing up and down on these thin bouncy ropes and landing on what appeared to being their crotch and then bouncing back up onto their feet.  It looked terribly painful.   

Slack line and trampoline

This year there was a new number with camels which we both found quite boring. They basically ran around in a circle and acrobats did stunts between their humps.  Also the Mongolian strong men were blah and their number was like 10 minutes too long.  The tigers were boring too.  We remembered that bit being much more entertaining the last time.  All they did was roll over and stand on their hind legs.  I guess it was impressive enough to see 15 tigers in one enclosed space with a trainer in the ring calling out orders in Spanish?

Tigers

Anyways Dan was a bit tired from all the walking and shopping we did before and had a hard time staying awake.  Gasp! During the intermission we watched a brawl unfold on the other side of the stadium between and mom and one of the guys selling lemonade.  We have no idea what happened but the woman was yelling HARD and two security guards ended up sitting by them the rest of the show.   

On our way out I spotted a cute cuddly stuffed animal elephant that I wanted.  I was willing to walk out without it but Dan is a softy too and we picked-up the little guy to bring home.

He has a button on his hind-end so naturally we named him Tushie.  He is SO soft and fits right in with Puddles, Philbin, Clover, and the rest of the bunch.