The Great Circus Parade

So, it has taken me quite a while to post these pictures, but the Great Circus Parade was a neat experience! We have never been to such a crowded, or more highly anticipated parade, it even sounds kind of silly to talk about a parade in such a way. The parade is a very old tradition in Milwaukee, and it is reminicent of what it would have been like if the Circus had come in to town over 100 years ago. All the business in town would just stop and people would celebrate. There is now a museum that preserves and houses most of the circus wagons (the museum has very generously donated family passes to our school's auction two years in a row) that has said that the cost of carrying on the tradition is too much, and this may be the last time that this generation sees such festivities outside of their museum. Needless to say, we took too many pics to post them all, but here is a marathon post of some of what we saw...


The weather was pretty perfect, mid 70's and sunny, but there was not really any opportunity for shade, which did make it seem warmer than that. The girls' cheeks were all pink. The parade was over 2 hours long.


Bastille Days was going on just a few blocks from where we set up our lawn chairs for the parade. It's a French inspired festival held every summer, and they have the yummiest ice cream crepes, so we headed over to the mini Eiffel Tower for a treat.


The girls and I by the Eiffel Tower, not quite as good a shot as Alyssa alone. Emma's friend, Catherine spent the afternoon with us.


Welcome to Bastille Days.


Please excuse the terrible picture of me, but it was one of the better photos of the crepes themselves. I was trying to get Rebekah to eat the strawberry one, and I had a mosaic crepe (mint chocolate chip) for myself, but she wasn't very interested. She had a few tastes of the whip cream and that's it. The strawberry one looked very pretty, and Ka'eo ate it up quickly, so I'm sure it was good, and the mosaic one is my favorite. The crepes are why we come to Bastille Days each year.


Kamele wanted a regular ice cream cone instead, and opted for a scoop of blue moon in a waffle cone that was bigger than her head.


Em, Alyssa, Catherine, and Rebekah enjoying ice cream.


Kahiwa showing her empty plate, mosaic crepes are apparantly her favorite as well!


The older girls smiling as Kamele offers them a lick from her huge ice cream cone.


I can hear Emma saying, "Oh, alright, if you insist..."


Alyssa's turn to have a taste. They were eventually passing the waffle cone back and forth between the three of them, it was way too big for Kamele to finish on her own.


We headed back to the parade and the girls relaxed in the chairs waiting for the parade to start. We talked about what kinds of animals and circus wagons we hoped to see and Alyssa wanted to see bands (I think she might have already heard some music from the bands warming up when she said this), Emma wanted to see elephants, Catherine wanted to see clowns, and Rebekah was hoping for a giraffe. I knew A, E, and C would see their choices, but earlier in the week, when Kamele and I had walked around the circus grounds, I never saw a giraffe, although we did see a giraffe wagon. I figured that would be a hard animal to hide, so I wasn't very confident we would get to see one.


As she sees the parade starting in the distance, she made a mad dash back to the curb. It was actually a small miracle we even got good curbside seats. Ka'eo went downtown to set up our chairs before church this morning, and people had camped out there and sectioned off areas with duct tape marking a spot for their family. Like I mentioned before, everyone in town has been looking forward to this.


After some motorcycles and police officers, the parade began with several old fashioned cars.


Here come the clowns.


Offering flowers with a happy smile. There were clowns everywhere, all throughout the parade.


Rebekah had been curious about this organ the other day when we saw it, and she liked hearing it's music today.


Ka'iulani loved how this kid could ride this old bike with no hands. She tries this on her own bike sometimes, and I caution her against it, especially after a recent bike accident a friend of mine had.


The Asia Wagon. I think I missed this one the other day as I was taking pictures of the wagons themed from other parts of the world.


Ka'iulani loved these horses. Many of the horses that were pulling the wagons were beautiful.


There was a huge patriotic section of the circus. All of the performers had really cool red, white, and blue costumes, and the bands played nice music.


I liked this bright blue wagon. It's Rebekah's favorite color, and the girls call it "Princess Blue." I guess because traditionally blue isn't seen as much of a girly color, but in this shade it is kind of pretty and it's always been Kamele's "best color."


Uncle Sam.


The Soldiers.


Waving as the parade passes.


The Menagerie Band. Alyssa got her wish to see bands all afternoon. Each section of the circus had at least a couple of bands that came along with it.


There were a few "wagon pullers in training." It was cute to see the foals reigned in next to their mothers, walking with the parade. They were more playful than the grown up horses, and pranced around sometimes off to the side a little dragging their mom a bit off course.


All the girls liked seeing these fancy ladies sitting side saddle. Kamele calls it sitting like a princess.


We took this photo for Emma. I think this is just a bull with large horns, but she LOVES buffalo! She calls them Duffalo but always gets so excited to see anything that even closely resembles a buffalo, and she has two stuffed toys that are duffalo. Silly girl.


Emma and Cate.


A clown riding his bike. Sometimes it looked like he was riding a regular two wheeler, then he would lift up the front handle bars and you could see it was a unicycle.


Huge human hamster wheel. One guy would be on the top wheel part, while another guy laid on the ground to get run over with it.


A very ornate elephant wagon. This might have been one of my favorite wagons.


Many of the wagons we saw a couple of days ago were carrying full bands on the top for the parade. We took lots of pictures since we don't know if the Great Circus Parade will come back anytime soon, but I tried not to post duplicates of the wagons I posted the other day.


Lady Liberty.


We were standing in the perfect spot for the Hawaiian Flag to march right past us.


The Lion in his wagon. His wagon said along the side "Danger, Wild Animal." It was empty when we saw it at the circus grounds, but when I read that to Kamele she very hesitantly peeked up into it like she half anticipated to be startled by something.


The Snow Leopards were so pretty, and very peaceful looking. I was a little surprised to see a few animals that we don't even have here in our zoo.


GIRAFFE!!! Little Rebekah got her wish!


And now for Emma, the Elephants!

A cool tiger wagon with a very animated clown riding on top. The parade had a real tiger too, but he didn't seem to like being in his wagon. There were several other animals that I didn't post their pics, in part because it would have made this post even longer and you'd be here until next week reading it (if you still are at this point :-) The girls enjoyed the anteater, the baboons, and the huge snakes. It was really fun and cool to see.


Here comes Royalty. We liked the colorful canopies and costumes they had.


The Chivalry Wagon.


There was an old woman who lived in a shoe...


A and E pose with a clown.
It was such a unique parade, and I'm sad to think that the tradition won't continue. But I guess that's what they thought would happen about 7-8 years ago too, and it came back, even if it was only for this year.