It was a first for all three of us, a quick first might I add.
We set out for the circus on Friday afternoon for the 3:30 show, armed with some $10 tickets I got through the Times-Dispatch. (Thanks for the nifty bargain, RTD!) As planned Sam passed out in the car on the trip downtown, and we stopped to pick up Daddy Mac at the James Center. Then we lucked out on parking, finding a garage literally right around the corner from the Coliseum.
When we walked into the building, we were overcome with the hustle and bustle as well as the many stands filled with toys for sale. The show was starting just as we arrived, so when we got inside to find our seats, it was pitch dark in there. And I mean DARK, as in you can’t even see the outline of your fingers in front of your face kind of dark. Even more shocking than that was the deafening acoustics, out of control loud for no real reason. Sam was still half asleep, so he was totally freaked out. He even begged for me to pick him up and hold him, something he hasn’t wanted to do for at least a year. As he burrowed his head into my shoulder, I was already thinking to myself, I am so glad we got the cheap seats! And I got more and more glad as the adventure went on….
When we finally fumbled our way around and found our seats, they were actually pretty darn good! On the grand scale of things, the Coliseum is much smaller than some other venues such as Boston Garden, Key Arena in Seattle, etc. Since it is not so huge, no one is really too far from the action to take it all in, a nice plus for the Coliseum, another reason to love Richmond.
The show was really entertaining, much more so than I expected. (Then again I didn’t really know what to expect since I had never been to the circus before.) The acrobatics were beautiful and quite complicated. Then they marched 11 elephants out, the tail of each tucked into the tusk of the one behind it. As they ambled around in a circle, I finally persuaded Sam to take a look, and he was enthralled. They had all kinds of horses prancing around, some standing on their hinds legs for quite a while. Then there were some cool dog tricks and a disappearing elephant trick. Things were heating up!
That was when Sam announced, “I want to go buy something.” So we did — he picked out a shiny silver motorcycle. As Daddy Mac and I tried to figure out what to do next, Sam announced, “I want to go home,” which made the decision quite easy. Why make life more difficult and push it? We had a great time, for all 20 minutes of it. Again, the refrain echoed in my mind, “I’m so glad we got the bargain seats.” We got back to the garage, almost got “had” by the surly parking lot attendant (I’ll spare you the enraging details), and dropped Daddy Mac back off at the James Center. And before you knew it, we were back south of the river chugging down Huguenot Road, home by 5 PM. We’d only been gone for a little over two hours. Sam immediately transformed the bannister into a trapeze and gathered his stuffed animals to create his own circus, so looks like he enjoyed himself.
All’s well that ends well, and it ended well. It’s just too bad the middle wasn’t longer, but, hey, just seeing 11 elephants parading around was worth the price of admission. Next time I’m bringing ear plugs, though!
LibbY