Circo Hermanos Vázquez

The seating was greatly improved since the 2001 circus shows on Pleasant Valley Road. Instead of rough boards bound together and plenty of opportunities to fall through, there were enclosed risers, and bolted to them molded orange plastic seats with backs. This time there were four admission prices; last time, only two. An "usher" led people to the seats and placed a cushion on each one; in the absence of a tip he picked up the cushions. We kept ours. Ths time it was not possible to be photographed with a snake draped over one's shoulders. The strongman and his mother (and their serpent) were not in this show. There were three photo opportunities. A photographer came through the audience with a digital camera and took speculative shots using a flash. Later, he came around again with prints. It took five bucks to get a print inserted in the die-cut slots of a printed frame promoting the circus. He photographed nearly everybody and sold to nearly every subject and some people even asked for multiple prints. There was a horse act, with "Maximo," a young draft horse, and "Minimo," a miniature horse. Very small children could be photographed on or next to Minimo. Those photographs were taken using a not-new Polaroid camera. The third opportunity was for children to be photographed with the Hombre Araña, who had earlier done a very good chiffon act. Spiderman threw himself into the pictures and struck some very lively action poses with the kids, again for Polaroid pictures, but using a different camera and photographer. The clowns were excellent and so was the flying act. We hadn't seen a teeterboard act for ages; this one was a man and a woman, both jugglers also. We really could not get out of the parking lot at Marketplace Austin. In both directions, Lamar had about a mile-long line of vehicles arriving for the six-o'clock show and our parking space was blocked by those departing. So we tried the Chuy's across the street. The green chile sauce was everything it should have been.