Rose Parade

I have lived in Southern California for 14 years and decided it was about time see the Rose Parade.

I wasn't however prepared to sleep on the street overnight. I am beyond the age where that is fun, and I'm not a camper. So Ty, Steve and I decided to get tickets to in November. The best seats were taken so we got seats for 1880 E. Colorado, which is about 2/3 of the way through the parade route.

We got there really early and were shocked to see all of the RVs, campers and trash. People had air mattresses, fire pits, tables and tables full of food and were very bundled up.

I was happy to have my ticket to the grandstands. We got to our seats at 6:30 a.m. The parade started at 8 a.m. and would not be by our area of the route until 9 a.m. It was freezing. We were shoe horned into our seats, bonded with the total strangers that were forced to invade our personal space bubble and had a fantastic time.

It is amazing, nothing like watching it on tv at all. The energy of the crowd. Seeing those beautiful floats up close is unreal. They are so much more colorful and beautiful in person.
One thing I did miss were the commentators, there were so many people on the floats and we had no clue who they were. I'm sure they were important but their presence went unnoticed.

To fill in the gap our very hilarious neighbor Dave read from the program and gave us the history on each float. Then we added our own color commentary making it very fun. However, we had no trouble recognizing George Lucas. The crowd went crazy when he went by.

Unfortunately, our seats were located right after the band performing area so we got them on the down beat. It was funny most of the people around us had been band geeks, including me, we were looking for solid marching skills since there weren't playing. Some bands were amazing but many others were out of step. As a member of the peanut gallery we were giving them scores. But we were at about mile 3 of 5.5 I'm sure they were very tired.

I had such a good time with Ty and Steve. We laughed a lot. Clapped a lot. Yelled a lot. If you decide to go I recommend that you buy your tickets early and get a seat close to the beginning or near the television cameras so you can see more of the performances.