Parade Wrap-up ... through Jan 8th, 2017

Chalk up another year, and neither of us is sorry to see 2016 bite the dust.  These days, rather than saying, "where in the world did the past year go?" I've been saying: Writing 2017 feels weird, and I'm not sure why ... it just seems so darned futuristic.  Heck, as a kid in the '50's, I always considered the year 2000 far-flung and far away, which made penciling in the Big Y2k a real science fiction biggie for me! Now we're 17 years into the 21st century?  The years are flying too fast -- I must be getting old!

But 2017 already brought us a special reward:  Watching the Rose Parade in person, a spectacle we never dreamed we'd see.  Near Victory Park at the end of the parade route, this year's 42 sensational floats are on display.  It costs 15 bucks to get in, but this was part of our rally's package deal.  Protected by barricades, you can view them up close, examine their intricate patterns, design and workmanship, really catch the fragrance of the flowers, see how vegetables and fruits are used, or seeds, bark, coconut fiber, seaweed and so on. 

This "Teammates in Life" float was special, and a theme trophy winner for excellence in presenting the parade theme.  We talked to one of the donor recipients on hand who told us about the Polynesian catamaran:  The pictures depicted on the sails are 60 floral portraits of actual donors, and the vessel is propelled by a team of 24 organ, eye, and tissue transplant recipient rowers.  12 living donors and recipients walked alongside the float in the parade carrying flowers in celebration of the life they have given and received.  Long ago, Jimmy and I signed up on our driver's licenses to be donors, and we encourage everyone to do the same.  Our brother-in-law, Bubba, and a friend named Jim are both organ recipients -- this one is for you guys!  Click here to watch a time lapse film on making this beautiful float.  (hit your back button to return to the blog)

Think these Ragu float salt and pepper shakers are small?

How about two feet tall?

I found my pins from the two years Lyn and I volunteered to work on the City of Santa Ana floats: in 1988 the city's entry had larger-than-life sculptures of primitive and ethnic artworks displayed at the city's Bowers Museum, and a 1989 city-sponsored entry from Santa Ana that celebrated the 100th birthday of Orange County and the 100th Rose Parade centennial.  Now I have to find my pin from this year!

From the sublime to the mundane:  The yucky 18" snow berm (above and below) at the top of our driveway is gone, thanks to 50 degree temperatures, and heavy rain that's been pummeling NorCal.  I think we have a storm total of something like four-and-a-half inches of rain so far, and the storm shows no sign of stopping!  We've lived here for nigh onto five years and have never seen a blustery wind like we're seeing today.  Since the driveway is clear, we drove to the Elks Lodge earlier and brought Tergel home, and parked her where she belongs. 💗

Jimmy and I have learned a few things about taking trips.  We realize now that after a month traveling in New Zealand/Australia, a puny ten-day recovery time (with Christmas in the middle!), and immediately taking off on another ten-day adventure in Tergel was too much.  We get it.  Give ourselves more time!  And while we enjoyed the Rally in Pasadena, which enabled us to see and do much that we wouldn't have done otherwise, we're really not "rally" people.  Too danged independent, I suppose.  Adventure Caravans is a good outfit, and we have no complaints with them. Spending the week camped next to Sue and Mo (and Ratty Matty) made the week extra-special for us, we four had a grand time!

One more item:  Jimmy is taking Tergel to the fix-it shop on Thursday to get the recalcitrant dinette slide fixed.  She also blew a circuit breaker the night before we left Huntington Beach, leaving us with only one or two electric outlets that worked.  Time for Tergel maintenance.  Humans need it all the time, so 'tis with our homes.  She'll be good as new soon! 

That's it.  The End.

Critter viewing! Tuesday, 1/3/17

I'm sitting at my dining room table, looking at a mighty dreary landscape outside the window, light rain doing in last week's leftover snow, wind whipping bare branches, and a cold, foggy film covering all.  Jimmy and I drove home to Nevada City from SoCal yesterday (via the 405 to the 5, not much traffic, but a very long day) because we wanted to beat this "epic atmospheric river" that's threatening our part of the world for the next seven days. No way did we want to drive Tergel, towing Smartie, in what looked to be bad weather, especially since we'd considered using the coast route to return.  So ... here we are, safe and warm inside, and if I don't want to feel chilled, I need to shift my gaze from the window and take a light-hearted look at some of the cuties we saw up close at post-parade float viewing on Tuesday.  I offer them to you, too!

 "Prosperity in the Wild" presented a whole host of stunning creatures (above and below).

If you didn't look closely, you would've missed this grinning sneaky spotted python, but there was no missing the beautiful pink and white Roseate Spoonbills on the other side of the float, if you walked around the entire float, which we did.

And the parrots, below.... 

Look at this mythical phoenix, a symbol of renewal in "Go Roses" by Honda!

Up close, it's quite an accomplishment.

This is one of ha-ha floats, entitled, "The Cat's Away."  Self-built by Sierra Madre Float Ass'n, it shows mice taking over a tea set.  Really cute.  Our little mouse, above, flew in circles around the teacup.

Hummers and fuchsia on the Miracle-Gro float, "Everything's Coming Up Roses."  The sky was starkly overcast when I took these photos, hence you don't get the true bright colors that I saw, and I'm sorry about that.  Cool, cloudy days like today means the flowers don't wilt so fast, tho, a good thing for post-parade viewing.  Nor was the wind blowing petals every-which-a-way.

Big, bad winged dragon, with scary-looking teeth; made with what I do not know.

From "Be Your Own Knight."

Mikado Pheasant from China Airlines, "Return to the Beauty of Taiwan."

Enlarge the pictures to get an idea of what materials are used on each critter.

Above and below:  Cal Poly Universities "A New Leaf" float was my favorite.

I loved this little yellow chameleon.  With yellow lemons interspersed in bright yellow mums, this guy rocked.  His eyeballs swiveled, just like a real chameleon.  If you enlarge the picture, you will see the eye is covered in seeds and pea beans, what appears to be quinoa, rice, purple statice, and other natural materials. 

Of course, you would guess Lions Club International would present this float.  Driving down Colorado Blvd in the parade, with the wind blowing it's mane, he looked like a real lion.  He was drop-dead gorgeous.

This (two-toed?) sloth and the li'l froggy above are both on the "Echoes of Love" float, called The Bachelor.  We don't watch the show, but (according to the parade brochure) apparently Nick is returning for his turn to hand out roses and find his true love.  T'was a colorful float with lots of critters, and good luck Nick, whoever you may be.

Here's UPS Store's 42 ft giraffe again.  He's learning how to read!  Nice specs!

From "Waves of Hope," by Northwestern Mutual, ol' crabby, the pelican below, and the purple dolphins represent a life full of happiness and lasting memories that come from being a (cancer-free) kid.  This float featured quite a few more cool critters and people smiled when they saw it.

Dude!

Most of the parade participants put out statistics on how many and what type of flowers they used to create these fantastic floral floats. You would be flabbergasted at the number -- it's astounding.

A turtle (or we would say a "tergel") from Dole's "Spirit of Hawaii" -- a float chock-a-block full of wonder.

"Lucy Pet's Gnarly Crankin' K-9 Wave Maker" was decorated with fishies along its side.  I think the white is crushed rice.  Amazing what can be done!

Another dragon, but this is a friendly guy, a globe-trotter that blinks its eyes, and emits "smoke" from its nose to welcome 2017 across the globe.  "Doing Good in the World" presented by the Rotary Rose Parade Float Committee, this is it's 30th year in the Rose Parade.  Outstanding decoration.

Last on my post, but not least by any means, is this pair of beautiful swans presented by United Sikh Mission, entitled "Together We Rise."

BTW, we disconnected Smartie in the Nevada City Safeway parking lot yesterday evening, and drove her up the hill to see if we could get in our driveway. Nope. The snow plow had done what snow plows do -- cleaned the road by piling snow berms up on driveways.  Because we weren't home to clean it off last week, the 18" pile got rained on and turned to ice. And it's road-grime ugly, with leaves and gunk from the plow.  We made two trips in Smartie, emptying essentials from Tergel, and drove Tergel to the Nevada City Elks Lodge till we can get 'er in the driveway. We finished up around 9:30pm. (We left Huntington Beach at 9am.) Tergel will be fine at the Elks. Smartie is parked across the street at our neighbors.  Hooray, today the river of rain is melting that snow, thank goodness, so we won't have to pick-ax it away.

Meanwhile, our gas fireplace is radiating heat (ahh, so nice to stand in front of it), the central heat comes on every once in a while to blow even more warmth into our home, and I'm fixin' to put a cake in a 350° oven, which will add a deliciously sweet aroma, as well as hot up the kitchen.  Guess I'm cookin' with gas!  The day has become stormier, nastier, and I am happy to sit here and smile at these few images from the Rose Parade.

Here 'tis! The Rose Parade! Jan 2, 2017

The reason we're here in Pasadena!  When we arrived here on Dec. 27th, we didn't even know the parade would be held on Jan 2nd.  We learned, tho, that if New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, the festivities are held on Monday.  The Tournament of Roses has had a “Never on Sunday” tradition since 1893, the first year since its beginning, that New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday. They wanted to avoid "frightening horses that would be hitched outside churches and thus interfering with worship services" so the events were moved to the next day, Jan 2nd. Though horses are no longer tied up outside local churches, the tradition remains to this day.

Our alarm was set for 4am, but darned if I wasn't wide awake at 3:30, possibly from excitement?  Hooray -- rain was removed from today's forecast!  Cool and overcast, yes, but dry.  At 5:15am our coach left the fairgrounds for Pasadena, arriving sometime after 6, one of the first to arrive and get a good parking spot. Hot coffee and hot chocolate and continental breakfast goodies were set up next to the coach (it was still dark), which helped warm us up.  Temp was somewhere around 50ish.

The Tournament of Roses is celebrating its 128th Rose Parade and this year's theme is "Echoes of Success."  Did you know that although a few floats are still built exclusively by volunteers, most of them are built by professional float-building companies and take nearly a year to construct?  Seeing these elaborate floats glide past us, the love and labor that went into each was obvious.

We are always happy to see The Blimp (we call it Manfred for some reason).  I hope their crew was showing TV viewers some incredible shots of the parade.  It circled the entire time we were sitting on Colorado Blvd.

Mo, Sue, and Jimmy, along with the rest of our Adventure Caravans group, plus a lot of strangers, are squeezed onto the bleachers at 316 N. Colorado Blvd.  Once seated, we were parked for the duration; it would have been nearly impossible to get up and move elsewhere.  We were advised to use the bathroom BEFORE you sat down!  This is one set of bleachers along the parade route, with many more lining the streets.  We were dressed right with jackets, and a small blanket to cover our knees.

Worth it.

We didn't hear it, nope.  Suddenly, someone in the bleachers pointed up and yelled, "The Stealth Bomber."  I had just enough time to point 'n shoot and catch the image above. Based in Whiteman AFB, Missouri, the "powerful and elegant" Air Force B-2 Spirit flew directly overhead.  Quite an amazing sight to see something this huge (wingspan of 172 ft) soar silently and almost magically disappear into the clouds.

US Marine Corps Composite Band.  Yesterday we saw these guys practicing at the fairgrounds (see previous post) and here they are in their Dress Blue uniforms.  Marines from the 1st Marine Division Band, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing Band and Marine Band San Diego perform individually other times of the year, but the Rose Parade is the only event that brings these fantastic bands together at the same time.  These marine musicians are fully combat-trained, too.

We saw this float under construction (here), one that I thought would be a wonder to see when complete.  I was right, it's a beauty.  Called "Teammates in Life," it presents 24 transplant recipients joining together to paddle a spectacular catamaran through a Hawaiian paradise.  Photos on the sails feature 60 memorial portraits of organ donors interwoven with Polynesian tapa cloth.

This one is called "The Monkey King:  Journey to Success," inspired by the epic novel "Journey to the West."  I'm not familiar with the novel, but I loved the float.

The Pride of Broken Arrow, who performed at Bandfest (which we missed)

sounded strong today!

A Dole-sponsored float that showcased tradition and pageantry, it was rich with color and animation and live entertainment, including these three drummers (above) and dancers on the float and at street level ... plus four waterfalls!  Its use of flowers was dazzling.  At 22' high, 55' long, the whole thing was a marvel.

Miracle-Gro sponsored "Everything's Coming Up Roses," a stunning entry that used over 25,000 roses of all sizes to create the towering hollyhock blossoms, floating orbs, and lush deck gardens.  Hard to imagine so many flowers going into one float, much less the amount of flowers used for all 42 parade floats!  Makes me wonder ...?

This picture made me laugh when I saw it on my computer,

because the word above the wagon doesn't match!

Loved the beautiful animal details on this float, called "Echoes of Love," from The Bachelor!

Very cute costumes from the Ooltewah High Marching Band from Ooltewah, Tennessee!

My personal favorite!  Cal Poly Universities designed and built "A New Leaf," creating a fantastic rain forest setting as a dramatic background for a colorful family of chameleons, including the dude above.  We saw this one under construction (here) also, and the difference between "unfinished" and the final float was startling.  This guy's eyeballs swiveled just like a real chameleon and it was great fun watching this float go by.

Another favorite, presented by Ragu, of all sponsors!  Called "Simmered in Tradition," you see a plate of spaghetti (topped with Ragu pasta sauce, of course), giant garlic cloves, salt and pepper shakers, and much more.  Ragu is celebrating 80 years of great-taste tradition.  The house at the back features the founders home in Rochester NY, where they first began selling sauce in 1937.  Who knew?  And the really mind-blowing thing is "every inch of the float must be covered with flowers or other natural materials, such as leaves, seeds, or bark," even a house!

The City of Torrance put together this "Be Your Own Knight," using volunteers only to decorate their float.  The winged dragon dramatically spews "smoke," but the float is designed as a metaphor for success by being your own knight.  Cool beans!

Ah, yes, the honey bucket crew follows the equestrians!

Our crowd howled with laughter when we saw this rig easing down the hill toward our viewing stand. A giant RV is what we saw coming ... and then the entire top slowly raised, showing eight dogs taking advantage of an "accidental" pool party.  Put on by Farmers Insurance (sure), it's called, "We Came, We Saw, We Covered."  Very clever, indeed.

Oh my, "Prosperity in the Wild" was a real stunner!  Look at those cats!  Sponsored by Western Asset Management Co, it reflects the 2017 theme of "Echoes of Success" by highlighting successful efforts to preserve rare and endangered species.  It sure was pretty.

Just a fragment of a towering float by The UPS Store, called "Books Bring us Together," saluting Toys for Tots Literacy Program.  We loved it!  (UPS is the exclusive sponsor of the Program.)  This is their first ever float entry -- did a darned fine job of it, too, don't you think?  I believe the 42' tall giraffe is hinged at the neck so it could maneuver under traffic signals, etc.

I've included just a small portion of what we saw.  42 impressive and gorgeous floats, a multitude of bands (and most of them playing as they marched by our bleachers, hooray!), equestrian units, the parade took two hours from beginning to end.  One thing we talked about, the one thing we missed, was narration; no loud speaker, no announcers, like we're used to on television, told us what we were seeing, what was coming, etc.  That was a bit of a bummer for us, but really, kind of minor overall.  Being at the parade, seeing the floats, hearing the music, waving to those happy faces who were waving to us, all of it made coming here, being here, 100% good. 

So, we came, we saw, and we enjoyed.  I wish I had time and space and energy to post pictures of all the beauty seen on Colorado Blvd.  What an amazing experience.  If we had a bucket list, and we don't, we could cross off the Tournament of Roses Parade.  Tomorrow is the post-parade float viewing on Sierra Madre Blvd, and that will really be icing on the cake, seeing the floats up close.