Twotravel.bc: A DREAM COME TRUE

We have talked about going to the Rose Parade for many, many years. It finally has happened. We flew to Los Angeles on Sunday, December 28 and stayed at a hotel in Van Nuys, California which is about 30 minutes from Pasadena. We went with the Elderhostel Program and are extremely glad we did. It was a most awesome and enjoyable experience. We had speakers and learning opportunities along with seeing the parade. This is such a popular Elderhostel program that it often is filled more than six months in advance. There were more than 200 at our hotel and about 50 more at another hotel. We were divided into groups. We had 45 in our “green” group. Most of our meals were at the hotel.

We listened to the 1988 Rose Queen on the first night. She explained the process of becoming the queen and what the responsibilities were after that. The first day we had a get acquainted session with our group and a video on band selection for the parade. Then in the afternoon we went to Bandfest and saw 8 bands perform their field shows.

There are three sections of Bandfest as there are 18 bands and two that perform at every show. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed watching the bands. It was too bad that our schedule was such that we could only attend one of the sessions. That evening though we were listened to three band members from the Alhambra Unified School District Band. They were excited and talked about the work they did to practice and be in the parade.

On Tuesday we went to help decorate a float. This was a truly unusual and utterly astounding experience. There are only 6 floats that are “self-built” and we worked on one of them. All of the other floats are made by professional float building companies. We worked on the La Canada Flintridge float.

Our group glued flowers and cut roses. Bob & I glued the blue delphiniums onto the name “La Canada Flintridge” that was put along the bottom of each side of the float.

There were so many flowers and seeds.

We felt very possessive as “our” float came down the street and we found that it had won the animation award. What a memorable experience.

Tuesday evening we listened to one of the Rose Parade personnel tell about their responsibilities. It was amazing to find out that there is no monetary remuneration at the Parade. The awards are given but they are just an award, no money involved. That includes the bands, floats and horse units. It is just a high honor to be there.

Wednesday we listed to Dr. Tommy Cairns tell us how the floats are judged. It is his responsibility to teach the three judges what and how to do the judging. In the afternoon we had a bus tour of Los Angeles which was our least favorite activity. We ate lunch at the farmer’s market and even toured through the oldest house in LA. We had a very nice sit down dinner for New Year’s Eve and celebrated with the east coast.

Then we retired early to bed as we had to leave the next morning for the parade at 6:15.

Thursday was parade day and it was awesome. We had great seats in the bleachers. We were about and hour from the parade start which is about half way of the entire route. What was the best was there were no commercials and we could hear all of the bands.

Friday was another early morning as we went to the Post-Parade Float Viewing. This was the time to take the close-up pictures and take pictures we did. Between the two of us we have over 1,000 photos of this trip. We were able to walk up next to each of the floats. It was quite foggy so the distance photos were not a much fun as the close-up. How interesting to see each of the tiny seeds and blossoms that cover the floats.