Author: Paul

You humble co-editor of this contest lives about 10 KM from this location, in fact, I drive by it every day on my way to work. Even with that fact, I was unaware of the history of this wheel.

This Ferris wheel started life as the center point of the Santa Monica Pier. It is seen in many commercials and not just a few movies –“The Net” with Sandra Bullock comes to mind first. Here’s clip from another movie it was in (starting around 1:42).

When the Pier replaced their wheel, they sold the old one on Ebay for $134,000 to a man from Oklahoma City. He had the wheel shipped to Kansas and refurbished it, replacing all of the lighting with state-of-the-art LED and controllers. After 8 years on the ground, it was finally installed in an area being rehabilitated from an old downtown airport in 2016.

Those who joined me on my way to work included:

• Martin de Bock
• Eloy Cano
• Rob de Wolff
• Paul Voestermans
• Garfield
• Phil Ower
• Lighthouse
• hhgygy
• AVE.C@ES.AR
• David Kozina

and those late to work, but getting a point anyway included:

• Ashwini Agrawal
• Gillian B
• Jesus Rodriguez
• Walter_V_R
• gscrp
• Hilde Lambeir

Found in Astana (or Астана, which translates to “Capital City”), this 65M/212ft ferris wheel was opened in 2017. It is at the center of what was once the Duman Entertainment Center, now called Ailand.

Astana is the 2nd coldest capital city (next to Ulaanbaatar) with winter temperatures often reaching -30 to -35C. Ailand’s web site has a page with the ferris wheel that says “In winter, the Ferris wheel will operate up to -15 degrees, with wind speed up to 20 meters per second.”

Those who located this wheel included:

• Walter_V_R
• Rob de Wolff
• Eloy Cano
• Paul Voestermans
• hhgygy
• Yakubi Dergahi
• Garfield
• Rodrigo Jurado
• Lighthouse
• Phil Ower
• Jesus Rodriguez
• Rissa W.
• Martin de Bock
• AVE.C@ES.AR

And after the hint:

• Ashwini Agrawal
• David Kozina

I was in Las Vegas recently, and we stayed at a resort WAY off the strip, nearly 20 KM away. From our 4th story window, we could see the taller buildings on the strip, but the thing that I remember the most was this HUGE Ferris wheel. When I got back and started having to look for future contests, I knew one I had to do.

The High Roller Ferris Wheel at The LINQ is, as of the date of this writing, the tallest open Ferris wheel in the world at 167M or 550 feet tall.

Those who took a ride in Sin City included:

• Garfield
• Paul Voestermans
• Martin de Bock
• Walter_V_R
• Eloy Cano
• Yakubi Dergahi
• Phil Ower
• Glenmorren
• hhgygy
• Hilde Lambeir
• AVE.C@ES.AR
• headbanger
• bibiweb
• Steve Hoge
• Chris Nason
• Lighthouse
• gscrp
• Ashwini Agrawal

And after the hint:

• Cami