Ferris WheelWhen I lived in Aiken, South Carolina years ago, I visited the annual fair.

The Ferris wheel provided a nice subject for some shots from different angles with my old Canon G1X camera.

When I was a kid growing up in San Diego, I really looked forward to going to the Del Mar Fair each year.  The fair was full of fun things to do, cool rides, lots of exhibits and good food.

My dad volunteered with the San Diego County sheriff's reserve which helped do traffic and crowd control for the fair, so he'd take me along several days or nights and I'd get free admission and some pocket money to spend.

The hardest choice back then was did I want to go spend it on rides, play some games on the midway, or even spend it on foods I wouldn't eat the rest of the year, or maybe some sort of cool souvenir.   

Then I'd spend hours walking through the exhibition halls, seeing the animals, and all the different categories of competitions they had back then.  The grounds were huge, so it was hard to take it all in or really see it.  Even the paper maps they providedreally didn't help that much.

But they always had a giant ferris wheel on the midway. Made of steel and equipped with gondolas, it was fun to look up, especially after dark while in line to ride. 

When your turn came, you loaded up and rode up and down, but my favorite part of the ride was during the reloading when you'd be stopped at the very top.

Off to one side, was the Santa Fe railroad with Amtrak trains and the beaches beyond that on the Pacific.  On the other side, it was the one chance to see just how big the fairgrounds really were.

Life has those times where you are waiting for something to change, the climb can seem impossible from where you are.  If you wait sometimes, the chance to climb on board and get a view of the big picture from the can be just a few reloads away.