Today, we took a day trip from our campsite to visit the Circus Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin, the hometown for the Ringling Brothers and one of the activities on our 1-90 list . First, we had a pancake breakfast at the campground. Other campers were having a rummage sale so we checked that, too before heading to Baraboo. The country road was tree lined and some leaves were beginning to change color. Very little traffic. We spent several hours at the museum before heading back to our campsite. Before we left Wisconsin, I wanted to find a "pasty," a Scandinavian meat pie. We had never had one but heard people rave about how good they are. We were referred to the Viking Village grocery store where we hunted for a pasty, not knowing what we were really looking for. Finally, a gentleman directed us to the cooler where they were. We ate it the next day. Do you know what it is? Garrison Keiller may have mentioned them on his radio show. It's a small plate sized, round dough pastry filled with a meat concoction. It filled us up along with corn on the cob and salad.
The campground hosted a one man musical show in the evening, Freddy Ferguson played guitar accompanied by an electronic band and sang songs for 3 hours. There were a couple of dance tunes so people got up on the floor. It was an outside venue on a pleasant evening. However, a camper came and stood just outside smoking an annoying cigar. We left awhile later to avoid the smoke that blew our way
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| Hard to really tell but this was a musical stage with organ, bottles, and other noise makers. |
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| Here, the wagon is carrying a few band members. This museum has a huge collection of restored circus wagons. The band members in this wagon are wearing clown outfits, a uniform I would hate to wear. |
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| It's probably too hard to see, but what's wrong with this picture? The top three lines of music are written correctly but the bottom 4 lines are backwards. The stems on the notes are on the wrong side. It looks like you are looking through the paper from the back. |
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| This circus band conductor had a long career with the music. I believe he built up the largest library of band music there is over his 50 year career. |
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| This little Subaru is called the "Rug Car" since it is covered in carpet. |
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| This was a famous circus trumpet player. In the upper R corner, you can see his tiny trumpet, |
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| This was interesting to me. "Stars and Stripes" got the name "Disaster Song" because the band always played it when disaster struck like a fire in the tent. |
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| Ringling Brothers built several large barns to train animals in winter. Now, these barns hold various exhibits like the wardrobe collection. This tricycle was used to train the elephant. |
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| The winter animal housing. |
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| Marching clowns! |
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| This building held more than 20 restored circus wagons. At the far end was the workshop with windows so the visitors could watch the work. |
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| Looking down the double row of wagons. |
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