Christmas Trip in 5th Wheel

We were headed to the Rose Parade with the Escapees HOP. We spent a week in Palm Springs over Christmas and then went to Castaic CA to meet up with the group for our rally. It was 6 days packed with excursions everyday and a catered dinner every night and they were outstanding meals! First up was helping to decorate a float. This company was building 5 floats and we had a tour with the manager. They start in January with the designers drawing up lots of plans. These are submitted to a committee and some are approved so that no two floats are anything alike. The approved plans are given to sponsors with a cost estimate and they choose the one they want. Costs are anywhere from $85,000 to $400,000 depending on the complexity. Then engineers do the design and specs to make it all work. It is now April and work begins on building the structures. Once built they are covered with different materials (wood, foam, mesh, etc.) depending on what will cover the area in the end. All of the float is painted to match the final colors. Every surface will be covered with something natural and not dyed. All types of flowers, seeds, nuts, feathers, fruit and other "stuff" is used. They begin to apply all of these things the day after Christmas and have to be finished the morning of Dec. 31 for judging. Hundreds of volunteers put in hundreds of hours to get it done. Some of it is painstaking work of gluing small seeds and nuts individually in patterns. Once judged on the morning of Dec, 31, they begin the long, 10+ hour journey for these floats, to Pasadena with police escorts arriving in the early hours of Jan.1. They are towed and travel 3 to 5 miles an hour and they have 30 people that meet them to fix anything that broke on the trip. For the parade they have a driver, that can only see the pink line down the middle of the road, an observer that tells the driver what to do and a computer operator for the animation. After the parade and two day display, they are towed back to the factory at a faster pace since they do not care what breaks. They are then torn down, parts that can be reused kept and they rest thrown away and the work begins again. Some of our group glued seeds and popcorn for the pagoda on China Air. the rest of the group that included us, cut and put together statis flowers to go on the final float of the parade. It is the blue of the rainbow.

Second up was Equestfest. All of the horses and horse groups that will march in the parade do a horse show and show their riding, roping and trick riding talents. They do not get to do these things in the parade, so it is an opportunity for them to show just what they can do! It is held in a roof covered arena with open sides. This was the one day it was supposed to rain and it did. We got very wet getting into the arena and then the rains quit, but it was cold!

Bandfest allows all of the bands in the parade to play several songs and march in formations on the football field at Pasadena College. This includes their dance teams and flag teams. There are three different shows so all the bands get a chance to play at one of the shows. They fill the football stadium for each show. The show we attended was in the morning and it was sunny, but cold!

The highlight of our show was the band from New Orleans. This band was formed after Katrina with donated instruments and volunteers to teach the kids to play. It is all age groups whereas the other bands are usually high school or college kids. Marching in formations was not their strong suit, but they played very well. One little 5 year old stole the show. Toda was a majorette marching between two much older kids and he was working hard to keep up. Then he got his drum that was as big as he was and he stood proudly with the band and played drums. He couldn't march with his drum because he was so small and the drum so big. He marched proudly in the parade with his little legs working hard. We saw the group after the 5 miles of walking in the parade and they were all still standing!

From Bandfest, we went for lunch and a tour of The Huntington Library. It is a huge estate with the many buildings being used as art galleries, special displays and books. It has many gardens and sculptures.

Then it was the big day! Buses have to be parked for the parade by 7am so it was an early start. The parade starts at 8am and would not reach our grandstand seats until 8:52. Yes, everything for this event is planned down to the precise minute. We were just above the hundreds of people on the street and so close that you could not get all of the long floats in one picture. It was really fun to see the horses and bands that we had already seen perform come past us. There are 1.2 million people on the 5 mile route and yes, it is gridlock getting to your seats and leaving at the end, but what fun to see it all! There were all kinds of horses, but the cutest were the Gypsy horses with their small size and large feet. They were costumed walkers and dancers and of course all the bands, dignitaries and floats.

Right after the parade we headed to the float viewing place where we met thousands of people. They put all of the floats on display for two days so you can see them up close. In spite of all the people, we were able to get up as close as they allow and get lots of pictures. The detail is amazing and you can see what they used to cover the surfaces. Here is just a sample.

I have wanted to see this parade all of my life and I was not disappointed! With a quick stop in Indio to see friends, we will be in Casa Grande for the rest of the winter enjoying retirement! Some pictures of special floats for special people. Karen, here is the float dedicated to you and your fellow nurses.

And for our granddaughters, here is Dr, Seuss on his float just for you.