Monday 17 July; Baraboo with Don and Tina

We awoke to young boys in the yard.  What?  Then there was a young lade.  Ahh, Don and Tina brought their daughter Katie and her boys Bjourn and Calvin.  They are sweet boys somewhat shy, but fun.  Bella is a big brat and became an ankle bitter running after Calvin.  He became afraid of Bella.  
We followed them through the country side for about 45 min. 

to Carr Valley Cheese Factory to watch them make curds and then pack the curds into forms to make cheese.  It was really fun, and they make really yummy cheese.
 
 From there we drove through Amish country.  I was asking how we would be able to tell if they were Amish since we had already supposedly driven through it.  We were told there would be no power lines and we would probably see horses and buggies.  Again, we saw beautiful farms and farm houses. Then...

 A buggy coming at us.

 Here it is

A Pretty farm

And a barn with a buggy parked by it. It's hard to see.

From there we went to the Intercontinental Train Museum and Park.  Calvin didn't want to ride on the train so he and Don Held back.  Katie, Bjourn, Tina, Rob and I went on the hour round trip ride.  

We rode out for about a half hour and then they stopped and opened up the engine compartment.  They let everyone check out the engine and go inside.  

Then they uncoupled the engine and drove it forward, switched tracks, drove past the cars, on down the tracks.  They switched tracks again and backed it up to the end of the cars.  They coupled it up to the other end of the cars so we could go back.

After we were all hooked up again we went back back to the park.  We hooked up again with Don and Calvin.

They were going to go to the store and then go back to the house and eat.  Two of Tina's sisters are coming in this afternoon.  They are excited to come and see Katie and the boys.  They are going to spend the night and then take Katie to the airport tomorrow.

Meanwhile the Ringling Brothers are from Baraboo and there is a huge museum and in fact, Circus World is here in Baraboo.  It has cars and trains and costumes and more and more stuff on display from the Ringling Brothers with Barnum and Bailey Circus as well as other circuses that they bought out.  This was the home base for the circus.  It was really fun.

We toured the grounds and went to 

a Tiger show.  The man owns, cares for and trains these tigers.

 

We sat in the bleachers and it was so hot that Bella sat underneath in the shade

After the show we were able to move up closer to the tigers.  All of a sudden one of the tigers alerted and started passing right in front of us.  We knew that it smelled Bella.  As we were walking away and it saw her it stood up with it's paws on the cage.  The trainer was somewhat concerned and then he saw us walking away with the dog.  Hmmm not so good.

We wandered about and ended up in a tent with all the odd people attractions...the skinniest man, fastest woman; puppy face woman, woman with a beard, tallest woman, shortest man, etc.

We also walked by the elephant and pony rides.  

And then we went to the "Big Top" for the show.  

It was sooooo hot inside the tent, we were not sure we would be able to stay for the entire hour and a half show.  We kept Bella on the cool concrete under us, except for the animal shows.  It was really fun watching the shows. One thing I didn't like about going to the circus when I was a child was that there were 3 rings with shows going on in all three at the same time.  I never knew where to look and I was always missing parts of the shows. With this one it was only one ring and it was much easier. The first show was a woman with miniature horses.  Black and white.

The she brought out big horses; black and white.

Then she brought out both big and little and had them prancing in opposite circles, mixed black and whites, all big whites one way, all big blacks the opposite little blacks inside and little whites going the opposite direction. 

The gal was real cute and looked like the actress Cameron Diaz.  Bella was enthralled, sitting up with her butt in my lap and her front paws on my knees.

Next they had a balancing act with a

 

man stacking chairs and balancing on the top of them.  He stood on them all stacked up and tended a hand stand on all of them. Then he had to give them all back.  It was cool.










Next they had the Elephants.  Again, Bella watched with baited breath as they did their act.  

They are soooooo big! She said.

Then there was an aerialist act she was ok!

And then the same gal came back with dogs and a little shetland pony.  Again, Bella was enthralled. It was really fun.

Bella really liked the dog and horse show.  It might have been her favorite, because she really followed them with her little head. She was so cute.

After the circus we went back to Don and Tina's.  We met her sisters and had a nice evening chatting with all of them.  Poor Tina worked her butt off fixing dinner for the entire clan.  we tried to help her as best we could, but she is extremely independent and had everything under control.

We had a really nice dinner and visited with everyone.  She has a very nice family.

After dinner, clean up and chatting, we retired to our own abode and totally collapsed for the night.  Very fun day with our friends.