The Rose Parade is the most beautiful parade I’ve ever been to. I was lucky to grow up in Southern California and see it in person many times. As a girl scout I even got to help put flowers on a float. That was fun, although not as much fun for the real volunteers I’m sure. I don’t think any of us placed one single flower correctly. Oh, the things children remember.
What I will never forget is how the parade smells.
Mark and I went a few times when we were dating. The first time we arrived kind of late on the 31st and had to work hard to find a place to sit for the night. The next year we got there at noon on the 31st to stake out our space and stayed there all night. We did do something most others didn’t though. He paid the manager of a Burger King $25 to park his parents’ motor home in the parking lot. We had a clean bathroom all night long, we were so smart. We could have sold trips to the bathroom in that little 22-foot motor home if we wanted to. I’m sure his mom is glad we didn’t.
We never did take our boys before we moved to Arizona. We participated in neighborhood New Year’s Eve parties and the Rose Parade became something we watched on TV. We always watched it on HGTV because they tapped into Los Angeles’ local channel 5, KTLA without commercials.
In October Mark asked our oldest son Jeff what he wanted to do while he was home for Christmas break. He wanted to go to the Rose Parade. I was so excited. It had been a long time since I’d seen it in person. But, would we be able to get a place to park our RV? I know Good Sam does an event every year and it quickly sells out. Did we want grandstand seats? Would Kevin be able to join us? To add another wrinkle, Jeff also still wanted to do our normal post Christmas trip to Ocotillo Wells to ride our dirt bikes and RZR which meant we had to do something with our trailer. Kevin and his fiance spent Christmas in Orange County with her family and were meeting us in the desert to ride but couldn’t join us for the parade as Tayler had to work New Year’s weekend. However, they could take the trailer home for us. Yeah, one problem solved. Now to find a place to park the RV for our curbside parade adventure.
Sharp Seating is a company that handles parade parking and grandstand seating for the parade. Remembering back to parking the little 22-footer, I wanted to make sure whichever lot we parked in would accommodate our Phaeton. The website didn’t offer much information on where larger rigs with multiple slides would be best parked so I decided to call. Boy, I was glad I did. I knew we wanted to be on the north side of the parade route because that would provide easiest access to the 210 freeway. I told the lady on the phone the size of our rig and that I needed to be able to have all slides out so my super tall men could fit in beds and told me which lot worked best. For all the convenience the internet offers, sometimes it’s best to talk to a real human. Our paperwork arrived before Thanksgiving and we had a two-hour window to park in the lot which worked perfectly for placing our chairs on the curb at noon. Oh boy! We really were going to the Rose Parade!
Then Oklahoma won the Big-12 and was ranked number 2 which meant OU was going to play in the Rose Bowl Game! Jeff is a PhD student in their meteorology department and is a big football fan. Heck, he’s a fan of all sports. He’s on their curling team and will compete in the national tournament in March, Broomer Sooner! Mark had the wild idea of not only going to the parade but going to the game as well. Are you nuts? Do you know how expensive that will be? It’ll cost us at least $2,000 just to walk in the gate. Those were some of the things running through my head but Mark was steamrolling ahead looking at tickets. The ticket prices the day OU was announced as going were insane. Now I’m nervous watching Mark plot and plan this trip. Be patient, he kept telling me. The prices would come down. He sure was right. By mid-December they’d dropped a lot and by the 21st when he pulled the trigger on three tickets they’d dropped enough for me not to have nightmares about the money.
This was quickly turning into a trip of a lifetime. Not only were we going back to the Rose Parade but we were going to the ROSE BOWL GAME! To say I was excited for my first Rose Bowl game was an understatement.
But, and this was a huge but, our parking space was 3.6 miles from the stadium and we didn’t have a car. I could follow the RV to the desert with the Jeep and we could hook it up for the drive from our desert camping spot to Pasadena. We hadn’t paid for an extra space and our lot was RV only. We also had to vacate the parking lot within two hours of the last float passing by the lot which meant we’d have to move the RV for the game. Parking the RV at the stadium was really expensive not to mention the traffic nightmare just to get the thing in the parking lot. Now what?
Mark was a man on a mission. He said there had to be another company that offered spaces to RVs and thank goodness he was right. He found Parsons company that operates with LAZ Parking. Not only did they have space available for us, it was only 1.5 miles from the stadium and came with a free shuttle! We could arrive at anytime on the 31st and had to be out by midnight on the 1st which meant the RV could stay right where it was for the game. Whew, disaster averted. We couldn’t get a refund from Sharp Seating but Mark’s cousin and his wife took over that space with their RV. Another whew.
There is almost always rain in the forecast for the parade but in 129 parades, it’s only rained 10 times. In fact, parade day is often the prettiest day of the year in Pasadena with the nearby mountains showing off their beauty against crystal clear blue skies. My dad often joked it was that way just to taunt people back east that were buried in snow. As a Pennsylvania transplant, he knew what he was talking about. This year was no exception. When we were packing for the trip, the forecast showed a 50% chance of rain. We had our very own weatherman with us and he looked at different models and concluded there would be no rain. Glad he was right.
We left our house on December 27th for a few days of riding fun in the desert. Kevin and Tayler met us there and we had a super fun time. On the 30th they left to return home and we headed west to Pasadena. We stayed in Newport Beach for the night so we could dump our tanks and arrived in Pasadena in plenty of time to park and get our chairs to the curb. That afternoon Colorado Blvd. was transformed into the ultimate cruise event. Neat old cars and motorcycles went up and down right in front of us. There were even cars dating back to the 30’s. Jeff and I sat in our chairs pointing out and taking pictures of them for hours.
A mom from nearby Irvine had set up next to us with her two children. It was the first parade for all of them and she came prepared. She had a little BBQ for dinner, cards to play games and music for dancing. They were so excited for the parade and it was fun to see their joy as it passed by.
We had a late dinner back at the RV then went back out to the street until 11pm when we could move our chairs to the blue line. Next time you’re in Pasadena, look for it. Morning came early and we quickly got dressed and hustled back to our chairs. There was a definite buzz in the air as the “curbies” were up and moving and people clogged the sidewalks looking for a spot to view the parade. A giant set of bleachers wasn’t far up the street and people were streaming into them.
The parade was just as I’d remembered. The sights and smells, oohs and aahs from the crowds and the parade monitors riding on white scooters that always seemed to be in just the wrong spot for so many pictures. And, just as I’d remembered, it was over too soon. We quickly packed up our chairs and headed back to the RV, we had a game to get to!
There we were with 90,000 of our closest friends walking to the game. The free shuttle seemed to be more trouble than it was worth so we decided to walk since it was only a mile and a half. The parking area was packed with people from both schools tailgating. We walked around taking it all in before heading over to the general fan-fest area. Each school had their own VIP tailgate area fenced off but we decided free was better. I have to tell you, the whole scene was electric. The energy level was high. We were excited for the whole event of the day; parade, tailgate and game.
We got to our seats early because we didn’t want to miss any of the pregame spectacle and it did not disappoint. Both bands played for a bit and the National Anthem was simply amazing. An Air Force group sang with a huge flag covering the field and it was capped off with a Stealth Bomber flyover.
Sadly the game did not have the outcome we wanted but it was a thriller nonetheless. This Rose Bowl was the first to go in overtime and we were treated to a double overtime nail biter. We headed out for the walk back to the RV. There were many more Oklahoma fans walking as I’m sure the Georgia fans were still living it up inside the stadium. It would have been nice to stay and watch the spectacle but we had a 6 hour drive home with a one hour time change. We needed to get on the road.
We didn’t get much sleep the night before and the adrenaline high of the day was wearing off so we stopped at a casino in Indio for the night.
What a day. I wouldn’t change a thing, well, except for the score.