WALLENDA!

So let me get this straight. . . . .I'm basically afraid to get in an airplane and fly somewhere. . . even though I will do it.   And this guy walks over Niagara Falls on a cable.  How can humans be so different when it comes to fear?  

I wasn't even aware of the Wallenda "event" when I arrived in Sarasota.  In fact, I only heard about it a few days before it happened.  But thanks to my A1 location of my little house, I live a short walk from the site where Nik Wallenda was going to walk a high wire over Rt. 41 - The Tamiami Highway- ending up on the 14th floor of a luxury high rise building across from Sarasota Bay.  

Walking over to see them setting up for this event, I could not even comprehend the courage it takes for someone to even contemplate such thing. And I suppose compared to Nik's walk across Niagara Falls last summer, and his projected walk across the Grand Canyon in June, this is small potatoes!

So Sue and I decided we had to witness this event for ourselves.  Well, I decided that I needed to do that and Sue was willing to join me.  I have to say, I went there with supreme confidence that Nik would make it all the way across.  If I had thought for a second that he would meet an untimely end, I would have stayed away in droves.  But this is a very confident performer.  Hearing him interviewed you really start to believe him when he says he's more at home on the wire than walking on a sidewalk.  I don't know how this can be.  .but it is true for him.

So on Tuesday morning we left around an hour early, took beach towels so that we could sit in the grass, and ventured forth.  We were not alone.  While the crowd did not approximate New Year's Eve in Times Square, there were thousands of people who gathered on the hillsides and benches and grounds around the site.  This nice thing about having the event take place way up in the air, you don't really have to worry about anyone getting in your sight lines in front of you!

Of course since I've been down here, I could sit in the grass on a towel and do nothing and be in heaven.  As a life long winter survivor, to be anywhere in January dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, and to sit feeling the breeze and watch the palm trees swaying is about as good as it gets.

But about those breezes and palm trees swaying.  During the first week I was here I walked across the causeway which leads to and from St. Armands Circle.  What I noticed was that up on the causeway the breeze was much stronger.  I assumed because of the elevation.  So we're sitting on the grass on a very breezy day, and I'm starting to imagine how high the wind must be 14 stories up where Nik Wallenda would be crossing a wire with no net and no harness!  Wouldn't the breeze be almost wind-like up there? There was even some speculation in the crowd that the walk would be cancelled because of the wind.

So the 10:30 walk turned into more like 11:15.  But eventually we heard applause and before we knew it, the crane began lifting the cage with Nik Wallenda in it up, up,up to the small platform where the wire began.  My stomach hit bottom just thinking about that ride up!

At the top he just kind of jumped out, climbed up a short rope ladder, and jumped up on the platform with his hands raised and waving to the cheering crowd.  Just like. . . well, a circus performer!

What is hard to notice in this picture, is that his long balance beam is hanging off the cage.  It had to be lifted up to him. No easy task!
















Before long, he had begun.  Almost without fanfare.  Almost as if it was no big deal!!

This picture makes it look like he's walking on air!  You could hardly see the cable.  But it had lines running down both sides.  At the end of the lines were people holding the lines to make sure the wire didn't move around.  According to the tv news report which had him talking through a microphone the whole time, he really was aware of the wind.  I don't know how they kept that line stable the whole time.  But I know he was being very careful with each step.  It was truly phenomenal.

Here he is literally just walking on air.  The blue sky has been with us almost continually for the last month.

Here's my favorite picture.  Nik Wallenda is a teeny speck in the top left corner.  He's heading for the top balcony of the white building.  But you can see his reflection in the dark building.  This is the same building where I took a picture of window washers and posted it on Facebook in the first week I was here.  This is about the halfway point of the walk.













About 2/3 of the way through he stopped and dropped to one knee and bowed to the audience.  The crowd went wild!   He proceeded to the end and literally jogged on the wire the last 5 or 6 steps.  Luckily he did not do one of those staged "Oh God I think I'm falling" moments that circus performers do to make the crowd gasp!

Today Sue and I went to the Circus Sarasota where the Wallenda's were the final act.  It was under a tent, so the venue was infinitesimal compared to the theater of the open air crossing of yesterday.  But this one involved bicycles and was in its own way very impressive.

Circus performers are a dying breed, I fear.  But I have had an intimate look at the life this month with my trip to the Ringling Circus Museum with Joan, the movie Cirque d'Soleil 3D, the witnessing of Nik Willenda's dramatic highway crossing, and today the circus under a tent.  I bought cotton candy and everything.  Because it's special.  And fleeting.  And I'm grateful to have witnessed it all here this winter.










I will be on pins and needles when Nik challenges the Grand Canyon in June.  Talk about your sheer will and determination.  And confidence.   I'm just glad I'm not his mother!!!