Ferris Wheels

I see nothing in space as promising as the view from the Ferris Wheel.  -- E.B. White

The splendor of the Ferris Wheel

One of the many things I have enjoyed about Washington is the frequency of county fairs and fair-type events - particularly events that offer the visual thrill of a Ferris Wheel.  Mind you, I am a total wimp when it comes to carnival rides.  I become terrified and queasy on The Zipper. I get woozy and alarmed on The Tilt-A-Whirl and I go into a fist clenching state of panic on any roller coaster larger than a kiddie-sized affair.  I even, embarrassingly, tend to frequent the children's rides at Disneyland.   I prefer the mysterious stability of The Pirates of The Caribbean and the safe joys of the Peter Pan ride to any of the roller coasters or, God forbid, anything that might turn you upside down. But most sadly for me is that I am afraid of the Ferris Wheel. Sad because I adore how they look and ever since reading Charlotte's Web and The Great Gastsby as a young girl, I find them terribly romantic too.  So on my birthday last year I allowed my sweetie to talk me into a romantic ride on the glittering Wheel at The Capitol Lakefair. As you can see by my weird grimace in the photograph below I was on the verge of having a heart attack as the carriage was being rocked by a now not-so-sweet sweetheart.

Having a heart attach on the Ferris Wheel.

I love the names of Ferris Wheels too: The Cosmo Clock, The London Eye, The Astro Wheel and The Singapore Flyer which stands 541 feet tall making it the largest Wheel in the world. It is even cooler by being the only Wheel that had its direction changed because of advice given by feng shui masters. And of course there is the subcategory of Wheels called "Eccentric Wheels" where the cars are not only affixed to the rim but slide up and down the spokes of wheel between the hub and the rim.  I feel a bit faint just thinking about that.

Another wheel-ish ride...

The history of the Ferris Wheel is a charming one and how could it not be?  The very first incarnation of the amusement wheel  may have happened in 17th century Bulgaria where they were called "Pleasure Wheels." But Pleasure Wheels were too much fun to be contained by any one country and they started popping up around the same century in India, Europe, Persia, Siberia and Romania. Pleasure Wheels didn't make it to America until 1848 when a wooden one was built to - guess what? Attract people to a fair. Things have not changed much or at all. The original Ferris Wheel was a mere 264 feet and started delighting the attendees of the World's Columbian Exposition in June of 1893.  After that it was just an evolution of who has the tallest and most glamorous...it doesn't matter to me - I see one, any size, twinkling against the night sky my feet are inextricably drawn to move closer to its hypnotic rotations.