Wedding: Prelude to a Circus

At about 5:15 pm on Saturday, my dad asked me what I was doing for the evening. I said, "I'm going to a wedding...and the circus." For once, I was the wierder of the two of us.

I got to the circus circuitously...when my friend, Melissa, mentioned to Chrissy's dad (aka: Papa Espina) that she'd never been to the circus. A little background on Papa Espina: he LOVES going to all the local Corpus Christi stuff...like Oklahoma! last week at the Harbor Playhouse, or our minor league baseball team, the Hooks. However, his family isn't quite as enthusiastic about such adventures, so he often has to corral them into going. When Mels said she hadn't been to the circus, she became the newest member of the "Papa Espina Corral" for Corpus adventures. Chrissy was going out of town, so Mels invited me to go to the circus with her and Papa Espina. When Mels told Papa Espina that I wanted to go too, he said, "Oh great! You two go, and I will go see Hairspray with Mama Espina!"

And that is how Mels and I ended up at the Barnum & Bailey Ringling Bros. Circus with zero Espinas in attendance.

Me & Mels

Motorcyle Mania....they ended up with SEVEN in there

Here you can see 4 going around and the 3 at the bottom about to get started

Hercules pulls an elephant

Elephants piggy back ride

The double-dutch jump rope poodles

Amazing Chinese acrobats

See the guy in the middle where that ring is? He started out on the swing at the bottom right, then jumped through that ring and the guy in the top left caught him. They kept doing this until 5 of them were dangling from the trapeze at the top left. Wow.