January 27, 2010

Rose Parade 2010: Float Decorating

I'm going to backtrack a bit and take us back to New Years!
If you know me you know that every New Years of my entire life (and the one when I was still in my mom's tummy!) has been spent on the Rose Parade route. It's one of those crazy traditions that comes from growing up in Pasadena. It's such a big tradition for me in fact, that my husband proposed to me on the route (the one and only year I've ever slept out there! Watch the Video). Now that we're married we've started our own new tradition of going to see the floats being decorated before the day of the parade. It's fun to get to see the floats coming together and smell all the fresh flowers! O, and the glue and all the dried stuff.

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All the floats have to bend down to fit under a bridge at the end of the route. It's always fascinating to see how they get them to bend!

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Glue!!!

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When I was a kid I'd help my dad's company decorate their float. Since I was so little they wouldn't let me do any of the cool stuff. Instead they would hand me dried flowers and I'd have to cut all the petals off so they could glue them on later. Ahh, the memories!

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After the first building we went to the "Expo Village" and saw a little juggling show put on by a group promoting the Renaissance Pleasure Fair. They were very good!

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Then we visited the tent with the rest of the floats, as well as the Tournament Cars! We've always gone so late that we never get to see the cars. This year we went the first day we could and the cars were in the middle of being decorated.

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Shout out to Ashlee & Jeanette! Your float was so cute!

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Rose Parade floats have to be completely covered in flowers or other natural things (seeds, bark, petals, etc.). Every single last inch. So the seats the float riders sit in are even covered. I'm not sure that would be comfortable...

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I just love that the bird's feathers are made of leaves covered in brown.. stuff.

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Floragraphs are cool too :)

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This is the giant rose they put on the Norton Simon Museum. If you've watched the parade on TV then you've seen this rose. They re-use the same one every year.

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And last but not least, here's a little display they had on how they build the float. i thought it was really cool!

Steps

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Tomorrow I'll have the actual parade! It's a long post so I hope you're ready!

1 comments:

Regina said...

OMG! Those flowers are UH.MA.ZING!