Fantasy RV Rose Parade Rally

Today is our first full day at the Rally.  Fantasy does a great job.  We started the morning earlier than we have been getting up for a while, 6:30am and breakfast was at 7:30.  By 8:30 we were boarding the bus for the Sierra Madre Float Barn.  It is entitled "I think I can" this year. There were got to help get the roses ready for the float by cutting them to the correct size and sticking them in the water vases that had been filled by the Girl Scouts earlier.  

After cutting about 250 roses at our table in one hour, we went next door to tour the actual float building area. The workers were painting with seeds and other materials and the flowers will be applied to the green foam on the base of the float.  That will take place on the 31st.  In the meantime, all the flowers are stored in refrigerator trailers.

This is what the finished float will look like!

The floats princess's were ready for pictures ! ! 

In the afternoon we spent a couple of hours at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in downtown Pasadena.  It is a wonderful place that would really take at least a full day, if not a week, to see as it takes up about 209 acres of land. The brochure states that it is a private nonprofit collections-based research and educational institution founded in 1919 by Henry Huntington. They only charged $15 for admission of seniors. We were only able to see several of the gardens with a docent and then inside the Huntington House where the art collection is displayed.  I quickly found these two famous paintings. You may recognize them.

This is Pinky 

And this is Blue Boy

The most interesting garden for us was The Chinese Garden.  All the artwork and design came from Suzhou, China where my brother Joe and his wife Celeste lived for five years.  The actual inserts in the windows and the sandstone rocks as well as all the other materials were shipped from China.

It was so interesting to see all the flowers that are still in bloom, even in the winter...  Carmelia's, roses and this bird of paradise ! ! ! Beautiful

Tonight we are doing a winery tour and dinner at the San Antonio Winery. Should be fun! ! .

Tomorrow is another busy day !