Our Weekend Vacation to Pasadena, CA

So our family took a mini vacation towards the end of our Christmas break. Jeff's sister invited us to lovely Pasadena, California to view the Rosebowl Parade Floats.

It was kind of a dreary day, but the floats were still technicolor spectacular, thanks to the millions of individual plastic corsage vases the the flowers are kept in to keep everything so nice and fresh looking.

I didn't get to see the actual parade, but I understand that this robot Cosimo, sponsored by Honda, was pretty amazing with moving parts and all.



I really enjoyed this float, featuring The Wizard of Oz.

This one was cute from all sides, and no detail was left unfinished. Moss and other natural materials made up the furry looking portions of the rabbit.

This one was spectacular up close. The knights were the hands-down favorite of our boys.

Well, except for this one with "Thomas". Because any train is Thomas to Judah, and he loves them all.

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party was pretty well done, too.

I think this is the closest Wile E Coyote has ever gotten to Road Runner.

I totally love that New Mexico uses these characters to represent their State, lol. The back of the float featured familiar rock formations from the cartoon and New Mexico. Very clever.

Because Macy's doesn't get quite enough exposure in their own parade, they had to make sure they were represented in this one as well.

The wave this family was 'surfing' was done with sprays of white and purplish flowers that did look bluish in the overcast weather.

This fountain also made use of purple flowers, and did look like water spilling over the edges, which was apropo for a Botanical Garden's float, I suppose.

The Asian artistry on these floats was amazing, and made great use of the full spectrum of color in flowers.

New Mexico wasn't the only State represented in the parade...this one from Alaska was one of my favorites. I love the Iditarod and they did a phenomenal job on the sled dogs using natural materials. There were other critters along with a moose, a grizzly and a walrus featured on other portions of the float. Well done.

This float highlighted the Burbank Drive-in (as I remember), featuring 3-D glasses and a number of famed flicks shown in the theater over the years. Their attention to detail was incredible. Every nook and cranny had neat things to look at.

This float was advertising some type of dog food. Love the skating bulldog. I seem to recall such a dog on one of those America's Funniest Home Video type shows.

I believe this octopus was on the Burbank Drive In float, and I included it to point out that the orange-peach color was achieved using yellow lentils.

Oscar's 'fur' was achieved using greenery from shrubs and bushes.

Here's another familiar face.

What really had me cracking up as I was editing these photos were the random walk-throughs...people who had absolutely no idea they would be forever immortalized on my blog.

I liked this guy for his carefree, "I got right out of bed and came straight here" attitude. He wasn't going to let the fact that he needed a touch-up with his Grecian Formula stop him.

I think this guy was muttering, "Where IS that woman! She drags me out here when I could be golfing, and now I've lost her in the crowds."



This, however, was my favorite. I think it's Larry Hagman from Dallas, lol. (I've really lucked out in my celebrity sightings...first Don King the boxing promoter, and now J.R. Ewing as he would have looked had ne not been shot.)

And no family outing would be complete without tormenting treating our youngest to the sight of an enormous moving beast with steam coming out of his nostrils. When it turned your direction, it looked as though it were looking right at you.

All Judah had to say about the matter was to whimper, "I want to go h-o-o-o-o-me"

Which after hoofing it up and down the entire length of that place in those crowds sounded like a pretty good idea to us.

It was getting towards dusk when we finally finished our tour. I thought it was fitting that one of the final floats in the lineup featured the Lutheran Bible Hour float with a giant pipe organ and the word, "Hallelujah!"

My sentiment exactly.