Last Day at The Rose Parade Rally

What a loooooog day.  We started by catching the bus at 6:00am this morning. Practically followed the crowds to about two blocks off Colorado Blvd where about 50 buses were being parked in one parking lot of a business.  Walked with the masses to our seating on a bleacher down the Blvd from all the news/TV carriers. Sitting four rows from the street is really great but I found myself missing the TV commentary and was really looking forward to seeing how the Property Brothers did announcing.  Darn...! Did not realize that California got so cold. Always think warm..  !!  LOL Doesn't it look like we are at home, not Pasadena??

The bands and floats were terrific.  We had worked on the Sierra Madre and it came together beautifully.

The crowds looking for their seats.  I saw that the bleacher seats we were in went for $94.00 per seat, however, a coach from back east was sitting near us and he said that he got his on Stubhub for $52 a couple days ago.  They were excellent seats.  We still had a few empty around us.

Always present

Was amazing to see this stealth fly over, was soooooo quiet !!

 Lots of Duck fans in the crowds!

 The Motorcycle cops did some amazing riding in formations

Here we go ! ! !

I can see Alyssa performing here.  Was so neat to watch these talented kids.  A little scary since the spotter was not watching and one guy almost went over the edge of the trampoline right onto the street.  He caught himself just in time.

 This is the Sierra Madre float..  We put a lot of roses into stem vases for use on the base.  It was really well put together.  When you look close at some of the other floats, there is space between the flowers, not on this float !

Here we go DUCKS ! 

 The hair on this horse looked real.  Was amazing.  I think that they used  coconut husk.

The City of Torrence honored the Grand Marshall Louis Zamparini who died earlier this year.. Turns out that our neighbor Jack Dean went to the same high school and Louis' brother was his track coach.  

 This eagle was incredible.  Pampous grass and leaves..  someone is soooo creative.

 This parade brought back lots of childhood memories of the Mother Goose Parade in El Cajon, California ! !

In the afternoon we boarded the buses after lunch and headed to the post parade float display.  Oh my, if we thought the street we crowded for the parade seats, they were worse in the post parade area.  AND, they charge to see the floats up close.  Ken was not walking too great since we have walked so much this week so we just went down the hill and saw the first five floats up close.  It was a two mile stretch of floats and that doesn't count walking from the bus.

This is The Bachelor's float.  Trista & Ryan, Chris Harrison and the new guy Chris the farmer from Iowa as well as others were on this float.

Heading to Thousand Trails in Palm Springs tomorrow.  It is actually in Palm Desert. We get to stay put for a whole month.  Gonna love that.  Sure hope it is warm there now ! ! !   LOL