"Behind" the Scenes at the Elephant Walk

Last night was the annual Elephant Walk in Fort Worth. When the Ringling Brothers circus comes to town, the night before their opening show they march the elephants into downtown Fort Worth for a huge feast of hay, bananas, apples, carrots, and watermelons. There were a LOT of people lining both sides of Main Street when we got downtown, so we found what we thought was a good spot to watch the pre-elephant entertainment and the elephant feast.

At 7:00 the pre-show started, with four clowns doing a variety of acts as another group of people set the table for the elephants. The clown in the first picture stopped and posed when he saw me taking his picture. The girls said he was hitting on me. Oh well, nothing else hits on me these days - I guess I'll take what I can get!

(the feast)

FINALLY we saw eight elephants heading up Main Street from the convention center, decked out with their Ringling Brothers headgear, and "holding tails."

The elephants walked up to the tables in a single-file line (much better than most children I know) and started chowing down. That was when we realized our mistake - the elephants were all facing the other side of the street! All we saw was their BACKSIDES!!! Thankfully, we were down the way a bit, so we had a side view of the not-so-small "Baby," the youngest of the bunch. Baby preferred bananas over most of the other foods, though he really enjoyed the watermelons when they put those out. They would step on the watermelon with a front foot to break it open, and then chow down!

Anyway, even though we had a "behind the scenes" view, we enjoyed hearing all the facts about the elephants, interacting with the clowns, and watching the elephants eat and march. It was an unusual experience, one that I'll try to repeat next year when the circus comes to town. Next time, I'll know which side of the street to go on too!