Elephants ride bikes and move it, move it.

Yeah, you read that right.

This afternoon dad, Maximus, and I went to the Shrine Circus down at the IMA.  Even with a free pass, it was still ridiculously expensive to go. Crazy the things you do for a kid :o)

I'd paid the parking, and the admissions. Dad paid for Max to ride the elephant and a pony. Gee, my kid didn't get spoiled at all!

Max was very amused that the elephant stopped mid-ride to take a dump. Great kid I got there, amused by any and all bodily functions be it man or animal.

Just so happened that we saw my cousin and his wife there with their kid so we were all able to sit together. Their son, Justin, is only two months younger than Max so he had someone to hang with.

The circus just isn't what is used to be. Or maybe its just that as a kid the circus just seemed so much greater. I thinks it the first.

For one thing, it used to be when you walked in you were greeted by mass amounts of clowns (which really sucked for me since I absolutely hate clowns.) So you would walk in, buy a program and then have each and every clown you met autograph it.  I think there were about four clowns when we walked in.

It costs ten dollars to ride the elephant. Ouch. Five dollars to park.  Four dollars for popcorn. Three for water. Eight dollars for the pony ride. Fifteen dollars for the laser gun. But, I have to admit, the laser gun is pretty damned cool.  I did a little fist pump when Max decided he wanted that over the light up sword.

But I knew it was going to be expensive going in. Hey, at least I got a break on admission with some free passes.

The circus itself has gotten pretty lame too.  There were no trapeze artists, just some guys that rode their motorcycles up and down a wire with girls sitting on swings below it that did nothing but smile and wave to the crowds. Whoo hoo.

The tiger act lasted about five minutes, and the highlight was when they jumped through the hoop of fire. Once.

The elephants amused Max greatly. They walked around and did some tricks and then they played the "Move it" song from Madagascar during the act.

There was a gymnastics act dubbed 'The Chicago Boys' that did crazy flips and jump roped. Much more amusing than it sounds, trust me.  They were probably the highlight of the circus.  They boomed hip hop and rap music through the arena and Max danced his little tushie off.

There was an Asian man who practiced the ancient art of 'vase balancing'. Yeah, that was about as exciting as it sounds.

Then they turned out all of the lights except for one tiny blue spotlight and had women in day glo butterfly suits come out, climb the ropes and do a little twirly act.  The problem was, it was way too dark to see anything.  The blue light was so tiny that it did nothing to highlight the colors of their outfits, so we basically sat in the dark for about ten minutes listening to goofy music and our own thoughts.

But, as disappointing as it was compared to my own childhood memories of circus past, Maximus absolutely loved it.

He passed out in the car on the way home after telling daddy about how cool the circus was.  As Floyd tucked him into bed, he opened his eyes and said "dad, the elephants ride bikes and like to move it, move it." then promptly fell back asleep with a big grin on his face.