Rose Parade Floats

It has been a long dream of mine to see the Rose Parade floats up close, not necessarily to camp out overnight along the route, but to view them the day after, when you can walk up close and leisurely admire them. This year, the kids started their Christmas vacation early and ended early, and returned to school January 2nd. Steve and I continued our winter break and went over to Pasadena to check out the floats, and scored an excellent parking spot within walking distance of the floats. The theme was, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" based on the Dr. Seuss book. In the next couple of blog entries I'll post several photos of the floats. My major impressions: - The flowers are gorgeous up close, the detail is amazing. Many flowers, especially the roses, are kept in individual vials on the floats. - The floats appear larger on TV. - It is good to get to the viewing early, do your research on directions, and find parking on the street vs. catching one of the shuttles. - There are tons of floats! It takes at least 2 hours to view them all. It was a gorgeous day and the floats were amazing.