I have a confession to make: I love being out and about in Pasadena all year 'round, except during Tournament of Roses week.I often drive through the Arroyo near the Rose Bowl Stadium on my way home from Hollywood or the San Fernando Valley. But not today. People are down there getting ready for the game and the parade. I don't know how many people are there. It might be fifty, but in my imagination it's fifty thousand, stomping around in those huge, white tents and sipping camp coffee in rumbling RVs while they do whatever it is they do to get ready for the big New Year's party Pasadena throws every year. I'm certain if I drove through I'd get stuck down there and not be able to get out fast enough. I'm terribly impatient. So today I took the Colorado Street Bridge, which was fine.
Colorado Blvd. is lined with bleachers waiting to accommodate parade-watching patoots. All of Pasadena welcomes the tourists and I do, too. You can feel the excitement in the air. (Even if you couldn't feel it the bleachers oughta tell you something's up.) It's all great, it really is.
I'm no party pooper. I want this year's parade and game to be the biggest and best ever. But tomorrow I'm going out one last time. I'm going to run a couple of errands and stock up at the grocery store, and I'm not going out again until January 2nd.
Update per Pasadena PIO: City of Pasadena Holiday Hotline is up and running at (877) 793-9311 for answers to any and all questions about the Rose Parade, Rose Bowl Game and BCS final game. Volunteers are standing by through Jan. 7. More info at VisitPasadena.com.
31 comments:
Just don't throw away the key (great image)... in anycase, we'll airdrop vitals to you if need be :)
Remembrences of RP Past:
In 1971, we 1st saw the parade by going to a my parent's friend's house right off of Colorado (she is Croatian, a high end seamstress - making Vogue reproductions for Pasadena's best) - drove up from Highland Park in the morning, parked in her driveway, walked up, watched from uncrowded section of Col. Blv. - parking close by was a problem even then.
In 1976, my best friend A. & I got to Colorado Blvd. at 2 am, walked around, drove around San Marino looking for a well-off college buddy of hers, didn't find it, walked around some more, got some coffee, were so tired by 8 am, that we went home after the first 15 minutes.
Also in 1976, A. went back to college on the East coast later that morning, and her boyfriend took me to Rs Bowl on his motorcycle to sell my ticket...as he was making a U-turn ON THE SIDEWALK, my advisor comes walking down the sidewalk & recognizes me & manages to wack me on the head with a rolled up program.
Now, I kind of like watching both on TV.
Ok, now the pennies are dropping as to what's brewing over there! Happy times to those celebrating, and happy avoidance to the rest.
That chain is a major statement.
Enjoy your hermit days.
Patoots? I love blog posts that send me to the dictionary. :)
Oh, and of course enochlophobia.
Had to look up that weird word! But have you any idea what you're missing? Smelling and seeing close up the fresh flowers on the floats lined up on Orange Grove all the way to the border with South Pasadena? Watching the bands warming up at 7 am with drum rolls and pipes? Seeing the horse riders arriving along the empty freeway (on the 710 stump, seen from the Del Mar bridge) shortly before the start? On January 1, I regress to being an excited kid, wanting to see it all, and I'm very sorry to miss it this year.
Not a very welcome "sign" on the front gate! We love to watch the Rose parade on TV!!
It's our family tradition to drive up and down Colorado blvd around 6pm--to enjoy the tourists and see how they party in comfort and style
(A barbecue! A tent! A sofa! A card table! a heating lamp!) We've even occasionally bought souvenirs from the comfort of our car (cotton candy! flashing earrings to celebrate the new year!)
I won't even go to Old Town on a run-of-the-mill weekday. I hate it. I don't think I've been there willingly in 15 years. Come to think of it, as an Altadena guy, I won't go south of Washington if I can avoid it.
Be thankful you weren't here for the Olympics or the World Cup.
Tash, what great memories! Love the advisor should've taken it out on the guy, not you! Funny. Is your seamstress friend still here to get you the good seats?
Shell, this discussion may end up being more about the dictionary than the parade. I had to look up "the pennies are dropping." Have you ever seen the Rose Parade on Australian TV or is it not shown there?
Dina, the chain is someone else's statement co-opted for my metaphor. "Patoots" might be dad-slang. I still have his collection of old words that I like to use. I found "enochlophobia" when looking for a word to describe my feelings. To my relief I've discovered I'm not agoraphobic. Woohoo!
Bellis, it all sounds wonderful if I could only do it without the crowd.
I like to watch it on TV, too, Leif!
Desiree, that sounds like fun. I might try it if I can get J. to go. I think you've come up with a solution to my problem.
Greg, you're not a town guy, and that's okay. I like Old Town--even love parts of it. It's like the mountains in that it's not for everybody. And I agree--glad I missed the Olympics when they were here.
Don't forget, we get TWO football games this year. The national championship will be gracing the city on Jan 7. May want to stay indoors until the 9th or so.
I've lived next door to the Rose Parade almost all of my life...and I've only been to the parade twice!!! I can totally relate to your avoidance P!!! We've driven down the parade route a few times New Year's Eve (after attending NYE at the Ice House) which certainly can be an interesting sociological study...just watch out for the silly string flying towards your car!!!
Ben, I didn't know that. But...the national championship doesn't have a parade, does it?
Chieftess, I've never been to the parade so my fears are all in my imagination. Here are the circumstances under which I'd go: unseasonably warm weather, free tickets to reserved seating and an educated guide to show me the ropes. Otherwise I'd just be a freezing ninny in the crowd, too short to see anything and probably in the wrong place to see the good stuff anyway. It makes me unhappy just thinking about it.
I am so negative about this.
In years past, folks drove vintage auto's along Colorado prior to NYE midnight, got so bad from the un-ruly's throwing crap at them, the parade of ancient cars stopped coming.
On our street,the shuttle buses bound for the Rose Bowl roar past our small dwelling, spouting dust and fumes. We have counted up to 800 bus trips along our narrow street.
After many years have found short cuts to get around town.
If going to the Parade, the South Side of Colorado, (the money side, the camera side)for the best float view.
Yes, I basically agree with the P.
I don't wanna be a holiday pooper either, but there is just a strangeness in Pasadena at this time.
This year s/b bigger, or more stressful(?), than avg with 4 groups of out of state fans here at the same time: oregon, ohio, alabama, & florida.
Then, not all of them will go return to their states.
I'll bee much happier by mid January.
Petrea, I'm a big fan of the fly-overs, at least we can see what some of our tax dollars have bought. I remember the parade from 1998 when I was sitting in the bleachers on Orange Grove facing the Arroyo just before the parade was to start. I saw something coming towards us from the Arroyo and I thought it was a black hang glider, it got very big very fast, and we all ducked! We were staring into the blacked out cockpit of the incredible B-2 Stealth Bomber which had flown in from Edwards Airforce Base and then blown over us at about 100' altitude, definitely not allowed by the FAA! One of the most amazing things I've ever seen and while a weapon of war, it was comparable to seeing the Nautilus from Jules Verne pop out of the depths of the sea in front of me!
http://www.tournamentofroses.com/photogallery/timeline/TL-1990s-2.htm
Correction, the first B-2 flyover was in 1997, my how time flies (supersonic stealth)!
Our annual Holiday Hotline is up and running as of today at (877) 793-9311 for answers to any and all questions about the Rose Parade, Rose Bowl Game and BCS final game. Our volunteers are standing by through Jan. 7.
There's also a website loaded with information.
Petrea, we need to get you to the parade!
My father was a tournament man for decades. Lots of activity in our home leading up to the parade. One year my sister volunteered my parents home when the San Diego Zoo sponsored a float. The living room was packed with containers carrying the animal participants. It was an amazing night. Somewhere my sister has a picture of my parents standing in front of the washer/dryer with a container on top that held the boa constrictor.
My father's gone now and I don't do the parade thing anymore. What I am considering (and you might too) is taking the Metro Line out of Pasadena and visiting the new line in East Los Angeles. It's free New Years day and I hear the Soto Street station is fabulous..
Pascal Jim, the south side's also the shady side. Cold.
Cafe, why won't they be returning to their home states?
Thal, I think you're the greatest but you're not making a very good case for the parade, what with bombers flying down Colorado Blvd.
Ann, I'd like to post that information and link to you for the next few days, if you don't mind. As far as getting me to the parade: I have terms.
Take pictures for us, PA, if I didn't wreck your camera when I drooled on it.
By the way, the Metro is free from 9PM to 2AM New Year's Eve. However, it's running all night and it's cheap any time, so you can always get a ride if you're not fit to drive.
You'd think they'd flee because the locals keep hissing at them in italics …
Well, P, it sounds like you wanna go to the parade this year, or sooner rather than later.
P+/-J: They WILL flee back to their current states of abode. I'm just saying there is always a contingent who will never find their ways back. So Cal becomes their new home.
Nevertheless, I think most of us want the tourists to come visit. And, simply pick up their trash off the street as they leave after the parade.
They're not going to pick up their trash. The amount of trash is amazing! Even more amazing is the speed at which Pasadena's city workers clean it up.
Part of me wants to venture over to check out the floats, but the bigger part of me is scared to go anywhere near Pasadena.
Amy, I feel the same way and I live here.
Ditto from Glendale!!!
P---this is something I explain to folks EVERY year---that while locals like the income and tourist $$$, the inconvenience increases every year with the Tournament of Roses Parade and Rose Bowl Game. Grandparents and Godparents lived in Linda Vista, I grew up in SoPas...the pain was well felt. I'd avoid going to LV if I could, or at least come in "the back ways" to avoid the tourists.
But, I also have fond memories. Until I was 12 or so, I didn't know you had to BUY tickets to see the Parade. We'd set up ladders with scaffolding behind "The Big Turn" and stand there, cold, bundled up, watching everyone go by. There is nothing like watching the bands go by while your chest vibrates with the drumbeats.
Have never slept out on the route...even tho I did a lot of camping elsewhere, I prefer to have it quiet when I sleep & being on the route is not quiet. Walked it plenty of times in the middle of the night--crazy when *I* was a teen+, am certain in the eons since then it has only gotten worse. But for some, it is fantastic.
Having worked on several floats over the years, I know the smell of all those flowers and organic material...and that GLUE!Don't know if it's the same stuff, but it never comes off! Wonderful experience to place flowers then wait to see "your" float and flowers".
Have to agree---YOU NEED TO GO sometime. Bet PIO can arrange something for next year?
As to funny things, the Denny's on Colorado...out near the old Fedco (now Target) one year HAD to put a lock on their door after being overrun by Parade attendees using the bathroom and tables. Major issue for them, as they didn't HAVE a lock, b/c they were open 24x7, period.
And---all the folks coming to town, PLUS everyone boasting at the great SoCal weather (such as Al Roker this am on Today Show), makes every person in SoCal groan. I'm not sure anyone has ever done the research, but the visual of some guy in Iowa, shoveling snow, watching the parade and the game, wondering wth he's doing in Iowa shoveling, rather than wearing shorts in CA...a stampede of folks aim at SoCal and those that come to the RB and Parade, who decide never to leave...ugh! And LOL on the locals hissing at them in italics! LOL!
When I heard about the Championship game being played a week later at the Rose Bowl, I nearly fainted for y'all. OMG, WWTT (What Were They Thinking?)!!! I know, I know, simple to maintain the RB for a week, paint over and redo it all. Brookside may never recover and I'm not sure the towns nearby will either. But, let's try it and hope for the $$$$$ bump they expect. Personally, I'd not get close until a week past the 2nd game.
Maybe by then, all the trash will be picked up.
Trish, I love your stories (poor Denny's!).
As much as I complain I think the Parade and Game are a lovely tradition. I'm so proud that people come to Pasadena and have a good time. The inconvenience is a small price for us locals to pay to enjoy the rich reputation it gives us.
{Sorry to answer so late, I've been catching up this evening!} If it's been shown, I haven't seen it, but now that I have 'human interest' in Pasadena, I'll be paying more attention to such things. :)
I think you'd have seen it yesterday if it was going to be on, Shell.
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