Monday, January 22, through Saturday, January 28, 2012

Here we are in Sarasota, again enjoying fabulous weather.  We are staying at Marina Jack's, which is
lots of fun & lots of really big yachts.  We docked between two very large yachts that made us look tiny in comparison.  Folks here are very friendly, so it's fun visiting & finding out where everyone is from & where they are headed.  This first picture is of yet another beautiful sunset, which we have seen every evening for the past 4 nights (note the dancing dolphins)!
  

 

 

Our first day here, we got asked by a 'filming crew member' if they could borrow our orange fenders for the photo shoot they were doing for a Belk Department Store Catalog.  So some pictures may be in the catalog with 'our' orange fenders, if anyone wants an autograph, just let me know, since we are celebrities now.  Wish we had our 'stretch limo' here to escort us around town.

B & B Fender - Lower Right Corner

These next few photos are of the famous Ringling Circus Estate.

 The estate is the legacy of circus entrepreneur & art collector John & Mable Ringling, which sits on 66 acres . Their Gothic mansion sits on the Sarasota Bay.

The Estate includes multiple museums, Mable's rose garden, theatres, restaurants, sculptures, the original Ringling Circus Museum, & The Howard Bros. Miniature Circus exhibit. 

Mable's Rose Garden

Every piece has been made by hand with such care to detail, it was fabulous!


The exhibit includes moving parts, lighting changes from day to night, & as you walk through the whole exhibit, there are corresponding sounds of the animals, wagons moving, & circus actors talking.




This is just one of the displays that rotated
continuously.













Also, I have several more pictures of the miniature museum, so if anyone wants to see more, let me know & I will e-mail them to you.



















FUNNY STORY ALERT! 

Okay, this Ringling Circus Museum was filled throughout with life-like statues of circus performers in full costume, including the many clowns that graced this circus over the years.  So this next picture shows Capt. Bob 'clowning around', excuse the pun.

After he finally somehow got himself into this clown car, he posed for me to take his picture, which meant that he did not talk nor move. At that exact moment, up walks a couple looking at the clown car that Bob was posing in. 

The wife got up real close to the car & leaned down to look at Bob, who she obviously thought was a statue sitting in the clown car; at that moment, Bob turned his head, looked right at her & said 'hi'! 

She proceeded to let out a very loud scream & must have jumped backwards 3 feet!  She started hysterically laughing & said that she had never been so startled in all her life.  It was funny, & I'm glad she didn't have a heart attack!




Capt. Bob 'Clowning Around'

We finally got our microwave repaired in Sarasota & was delivered back to the B & B on Saturday, so we headed to Venice on Sunday, January 29.  We'll update after we arrive.