Back on November 2 (which was the night before the Red Bull Air Force made their appearance in Chicago), Discovery Channel broadcast a two hour television special talking about Nik Wallenda's attempt to add Chicago to his list of daredevil walks (if this sounds slightly familiar, that's because I've mentioned it before). In the days leading up to the walk, the hype train reached incredible speeds, and several articles were put out (like this one) that elaborated on some of the details of the walk. Since the actual walk only took up the last half hour of the show, they needed to throw in quite a bit of filler, so they started out the show by talking to such assorted personalities as his family, his parents, and even Pastor Joel Osteen. Yeah, Joel Osteen(you just can't make this stuff up[though to be fair, Wallenda did mention his faith several times, but it still seems like they were reaching a bit]). Then the time came for his walk. I'll elaborate more in a second, but to start off with, let's take in the walk looking straight down from Wallenda's perspective.
Feel dizzy yet? Here's what happened. First Wallenda crossed between one of the Marina City towers and the Leo Burnett building, going over the Chicago River in the process, and walking 451 feet across the river. After that, he took an elevator down to the ground, walked back to the other side of the river, then walked between the two Marina City towers, blindfolded. Yeah, you read that right, his plan was to walk 581 feet off the ground completely blind. They don't call him a daredevil for nothing. After he safely made it across on his second walk, everybody let out a big sigh of relief, and Nik Wallenda was able to put yet another feather into his daredevil cap.
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