Heard about this massive ten day festival on the radio this morning, I can’t believe this is the first I’ve heard of it! This will apparently be the first year of the Gettysburg Festival “Celebrating America” and will be no small event - over 60 events are scheduled from dance to theater to jazz. With events for the whole family and all ages this event is sure to establish itself as one of the premier festivals in Southcentral PA, if not the entire commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Much of the performances will take place in Gettysburg’s Majestic Theater, but events are scheduled at many other venues as well, including the Historic Gettysburg Railroad Station Pavilion, The Historic Gettysburg Hotel, and Gettysburg College.

Yesterday was the opening night of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s “Over the Top” Circus at the Giant Center in Hershey. I’ve never been to the circus so I decided after seeing tickets for opening night were discounted that now was the time to find out what all the hype was about. My only real circus education is from watching the movie ‘Dumbo’ as a kid so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect - although I’ll admit a flying elephant really would take the cake for me. I honestly didn’t think there would be too many people there as it was a Wednesday evening and kids aren’t quite out of school yet - boy was I wrong. The place was jam-packed, probably close if not completely sold out. There were of course a ton of little kids in the audience but that really didn’t stop my girlfriend and I from having a blast. I was really impressed! The circus was everything I thought it would be - acrobats flying from enormous heights on trapeze, elephants performing agile maneuvers, tigers, clowns, and lots more. My favorite act would have to be the “Globe of Steel.” I mean this really blew my mind, I was literally on the edge of my seat when I saw this. The Globe of Steel is a steel cage probably not larger than 30 feet high and wide. Now I’ve seen a few commercials where they have riders on dirtbikes inside the cage but I was just not prepared for how incredible the act really was. The cage seemed too small for more than one rider, but eventually they crammed 6 riders into the thing! They weren’t just cruising around in there either, they were flying 360 degrees around the thing in circles. Simply incredible. Long story short, the circus really lived up to its “greatest show on earth” propaganda, I definitely recommend checking it out. The prices for tickets are quite reasonable, just make sure you eat and drink before you go as the prices for concessions were a tad inflated- the price of a snowcone was a mere $9.