Today was the Ringling Circus Museum, Ca d’Zan, and the John and Mable Ringling Art Museum, a full day! John made his money in the early 1920’s on real estate, oil, railroad and the circus. He was another brilliant man with lots of imagination, hard work ethic and brilliant mind. He made his money without much schooling. Their home, the Ca d’Zan, a Venetian Gothic palace, was completed in 1926 and was their winter home. They had other homes, traveled in a very elaborate train car with the circus, and went to Europe looking for both art and circus acts each year. What a life! We took an excellent docent led tour of the beautiful mansion. He had a six foot long bathtub carved out of marble so he could have a nice soak. Beautiful wood, art, furnishings, lots of marble and lovely chandeliers were everywhere you looked. The docent tours always give you a little insight into the people along with the home. The Tibbles Learning Center is the home of Howard Tibbles’ hand crafted miniature circus, the largest in the world. It was amazing and covered all aspects of circus life. The Circus Museum had information on some the well known circus performers and restored circus wagons. The Italian Renaissance art museum is now a state art museum and was built on the estate in 1927. It is magnificent with a gorgeous courtyard and filled with masterpieces from the 17th century baroque period plus later European and American pieces. We caught a quick tour of the baroque art including a large room holding 4 gigantic Peter Paul Rubens cartoons or paintings made as patterns for tapestries. The room was actually designed to hold the art. Details from some of the art where taken when the room was designed. He had wallpaper made to match a wall in a painting and had detailed columns built to go along side a painting to match a column in the art piece. We only saw a small section of his collection. It was a wonderful day!
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| One of the countless Scenes Done in Miniature |
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| The Back Corner of the Ringling Mansion |
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| What a Performance I Gave! |
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| A Restored Circus Wagon |
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| One of the four Rubens Note the column in the painting and the column on the wall. |
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| Courtyard at the Ringling Art Museum |
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| Statue "Unconditional Surrender" in St. Petersburg |
Clearwater was on tap for today. We had all seen the movie “Dolphin Tale” before we left on our trip and realized we would be near Clearwater Marine Aquarium where the injured dolphin, Winter, was taken in 2005. It is a non-profit rescue and research facility with not many visitors until the movie came out. They went from 500 visitors on a good day to 5,000 since the movie was released 6 months ago. They are doing a good job of corralling the visitors in a small area and giving information and viewings with shows going on all day. It is a work in progress. The movie was filmed right here. We were lucky to see Winter swimming with and without his prosthetic tail. They had otters and sea turtles also. They release the animals that can go back into their habitat but those that who can’t stay at the aquarium or other aquariums are found for them. They had just released three dolphin the other day. A trolley took us across the inland waterway to a large building that was used during the filming for indoor sets and now tells the behind the scenes story of the making of the movie. It is a very inspirational family type movie. Winter has had quite an impact on many handicapped people of all ages since his survival and acceptance of his “new” tail. The movie brings that out. With the aquarium open seven days a week, I hope that individuals can still have quite personal moments with this remarkable dolphin. We took the Sea Life Safari boat out on the water with a marine biologist on board. They put out a net for three minutes to collect sea life, brought it in and recorded what they found. Of course we got to see what came up in the net first hand. We got off for a few minutes on a sand island full of shells. Another amazing day in paradise
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| Winter Without His Tail |
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| The Prosthetic Tail |
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| Winter With His Tail |
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| Bringing Up the Net With Sea Critters |
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| Getting Back on the Boat After Collecting Shells |
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