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Published: June 20th 2017
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Rose Palace
Rose Palace Geo: 34.1472, -118.144
Southern California - where one of the lead news stories is frost on a car in Burbank! We laughed out loud.
Today we have tickets to "Decorating Places." There are three venues we can visit to see the Rose parade floats being decorated. For those of you who don't know, the floats are decorated with organic materials only and every inch needs to be covered. The organic material isn't just flowers but also can be coffee, fruit, seeds, beans, lentils, seeds - anything organic appears to be fair game. One of the following photos has a nice list.
Having no idea what to expect we headed out and were surprised to pass a band drum line practicing on a sidewalk as we drove through Old Pasadena. We soon arrived at the Rose Palace. We, unbelievably, found a parking spot on the street so didn't have to pay to park. After standing in line for about 40 minutes we climbed the temporary steps into the palace to a long catwalk that overlooks the floats being worked upon. What a hubbub of activity! People climbing on scaffolding, long tables of workers wielding containers of glue and boxes of flower heads. All
Mums for decorating
mums for decorating of the floats are decorated mostly by volunteers. It was wonderful to see.
After visiting the Rose Palace we hopped back in the car and headed for the Rose Bowl football stadium as the other two decorating venues are close by each other and the stadium.
The second area was very festive with souvenir vendors, food booths, a drum corp group was practicing at the entrance - lots going on. This entry line was quite a bit longer than at the first place but it moved quickly. Here we walked ground-level with the floats. More great photo ops and the Pasadena Pipe Band marched in playing drums and bagpipes.
If you look closely in some of the photos you'll see butternut squash, watermelons, oranges and other fruits used in decorating. All of the flower stems are put into tiny test tubes (just like those used by florists), except these test tubes are not filled with water but with 7-Up. We're guessing that the sugar helps keep the flowers fresher than just water would. The tubes are then inserted into the floats' patterns. One of the photos shows some of these empty holes waiting to be filled.This was my favorite of
Where the mums went
Where the mums went the three sites.
The third decorating place was a short walk but apparently we were not the only people to make it the last stop of the day. We stood in line, in the RAIN and wind for 90 minutes or more. Of course Jeff and I being seasoned travelers had our ponchos. As seasoned travelers lacking occasionally in common sense, the ponchos were in the trunk of our car. We got soaked. LOL
This area was another catwalk but unlike the first catwalk venue some of these floats came right up, up close to where we were walking. I'd love to see some floats roll out of these buildings. Actually, I'd enjoy seeing all that scaffolding and boards across the scaffolding being taken down and moved.
The people in charge of the Rose Parade floats do a wonderful job of making it easy to enjoy the process. The prices are reasonable and it is all very well organized.
We are back in our hotel, dry and warm. We hope you've enjoyed this look at the floats.
Until tomorrow...
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tom
non-member comment
great entry & I love the photos!