Seattle Great Wheel 2020

I decided I wanted to make a brief post dedicated to just this event yesterday, as opposed to waiting to make it part of my weekend roundup in tomorrow's Daily Lunch Update (DLU). Alexia, my neighbor, and I decided to ride the Seattle Great Wheel. Over the many times that she has walked with me to my office and back, we have talked about how she has never ridden the Great Wheel, has always wanted to, and we would do it as soon as we were able. It was only about a month ago that I happened to be coming back from the office on my own and I noticed the Wheel was actully rotating: it was open for operation again! I looked them up on Facebook and discovered they had reopened on June 20. I later texted Alexia about it. Well, after talking about it a few times, I finally suggested we go do it this weekend. I had suggested she walk with me to the office yesterday, and we just stop at the Seattle Great Wheel as part of our walk back home. But, Alexia is having some kind of issue with her knee and says she won't be able to walk for at least a couple of weeks. She was still more than happy to go to the Wheel, though, and even offered to give me a ride there and back, including the stop at my office—which I declined. The idea of riding with her in her truck is one thing (and honestly, masked and with open windows, that probably would have been even less risky than riding in the same ferris wheel gondola to begin with), but I really just wanted to be able to get some exercise in for the day. So, I rode my bike, leaving home at 10:50 yesterday morning, getting to the office at about 11:15, leaving the office maybe twenty minutes later and then biking down to Pier 57 on the waterfront. Alexia made good time even driving, and I did not have to wait long for her to meet me in line. The full photo album on Flickr includes 28 shots, and if you go there you can find lots of further detail in the photo captions, which I just finished writing. You can also see in the photos embedded right here how this is the first local "touristy" think I've done since the pandemic started, and that I have done during a time we all have to wear masks. Alexia even snapped a shot of me sitting across from her in the gondola and then AirDropped it to me. So: this was Alexia's first time riding the Seattle Great Wheel, but my ninth—I have only ever ridden it once each with any other people I have gone there with, with the exception of Shobhit, with whom I have ridden twice (once at the end of 2012 for his first time; then he accompanied Laney and me in January 2016). The ride in 2016 with Laney, who got really freaked out because of her fear of heights, was the last time I went—by far the longest break to date, four and a half years. Prior to that, I rode it five times in 2012, the year it opened; once in 2013; once in 2014; and then once in 2016. I felt pretty safe on it, too. And I don't mean the height, but in terms of pandemic precautions. You can see the open windows are not huge, but still, between those and vents, the gondolas are very well ventilated. And, they only loaded us every other gondola, the empty ones being sprayed with disinfectant and wiped down, then left empty for at least one loading rotation. I'd say the observance of social distancing in line outside was adhered to spottily at best, but again, with masks on and being outside, I wasn't that worried about it. (That said, I was annoyed by the family in line ahead of us, half of him had their masks pulled under their chin.) I mean, it clearly wasn't a necessary excursion. I'm still glad I went. I suppose it might still be best not to do anything like this again for at least two weeks. Then again, what other thing like this is there even available to do right now anyway? Nothing, that I can think of. [posted 12:32 pm]