All The Places We Go!

Well, this is late, but I'm gonna do it anyway! As you all know (probably) Kim and I headed down to Pasadena at the end of December to participate in the Tournament of Roses Parade. During our visit to the Rotary Club of Bishop in September last year, one of their members asked me if I would like to walk in the Rose Parade. Our clubs would have to donate a significant sum to help defray the cost of the float, so I was hesitant at first. However, as we talked, it sounded like a great opportunity to do something that would be a good PR opportunity for the clubs. So.....I agreed, half thinking that it probably wouldn't work out.

Here is a conceptual painting of our float.
Kim held up the program for the Holiday Party for a picture!

Well, in mid December, I was notified that I was in the Parade! Right after this, I found out that the Rotary Club of Portola (our nearest Rotary Club) was taking a contingent of 6 members down to Pasadena to work a shift decorating the Rotary float. So, we made reservations at a hotel in San Dimas (20 minutes away from the Parade) with our Portola friends.

We arrived on the 28th, and went to a "Holiday Party" on the 29th with a pretty large group that included the President of Rotary International, Sakuji Tanaka. It was a nice experience, but the food was pretty paltry for the price. I enjoyed seeing several of my District Governor classmates from the Southern California area. It was definitely worthwhile!

RI President Sakuji Tanaka and me at the Holiday Party

The accordion player was playing "Red River Valley" which
was Kim's Dad's very favorite. That's Frank Ortiz, the DG
for the Central Coast Area and my classmate on the right!

It was a fun gathering, but I hope they made some money off
the meal. $50 was way over priced.

On the 30th, I did Rotary work in the room, and Kim went to Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park with her sister Sue, and cousin Kathy, while our Portola friends worked their butts off on the float. The 31st was judging day, and of course the big event was on the 1st!

Gloria is the President of Portola. President Sakuji
spent about an hour there decorating with our Portola friends!

Judging was a neat experience. I drove down to Rosemont Pavillion, right next to the Rose Bowl, where they build and decorate the floats. What an incredible experience it was to walk into the huge warehouse were our float was. The scent was amazing! It was overpoweringly pleasant with the smell of roses, carnations and all manner of flowers and greenery!

They gave us all yellow "NID" jackets to wear in the parade.
NID stands for National Immunization Day. The jackets were
from Rotarians who had gone abroad to participate in an NID.

We were assigned our positions on the float and around it. I realized that my assignment on the left side of the float would put me out of view of the grandstands, but decided that I would "break marching order" when the time came. We took up our positions, the driver and observer carefully climbed into the float and started the generator, the music, and got the wheels turning. As the judges walked around us, carefully examining the float and making notes on their clipboards, we hooted and hollered "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" while waving madly to an imaginary crowd. I actually managed to get a couple of them to smile. This went on for around 5 minutes, which seemed like an hour!

New year's day started very early as we arrived at our float which was staged on Orange Grove Blvd right in front of The Tournament House (Parade headquarters) at 4:30 am. We stood there until 8:00 am when the parade finally began. It was a long cold wait, but the saving grace was that we were right in front of the KTLA Channel 5 filming area for the "Pre-Parade" show. So we were fairly entertained by all sorts of folks from the Grand Marshall, Jane Goodall, to a young couple that was getting married on their float, to Mexican gauchos expert in rope tricks!

Here we are walking up Orange Grove Blvd looking for our Trusty Float!

Kim and our Portola Friends lined up early as well to get into their seats.

KTLA interviewed and filmed the Rose Parade Queen and her court.
That's the "Tournament House" in the background

President Sakuji and Jane Goodall in front of Tournament House before the
Parade started. Nice stuffed ape the Dr. Goodall is holding eh?

As planned, after we got underway and approached the Grandstands (and TV cameras) I made a break for the right side of the float. I waved my hands above my head wildly to attract Kim's attention and get her to stand up and wave. It didn't work. She later told me that the stands were so packed that she physically could not get up. If she did, she would never be able to sit back down! My hand waving antics did make me recognizable to Maggie however, who quickly sent me a text: "I think I saw you in the parade. The goofy looking guy in the back, right?" Right!

Here we are approaching "TV Corner" and the grandstands. I am hidden
on the left side of the float.

Here I make my move, frantically waving for Kim to stand up!
Oh, yea, I'm the "Goofy guy in the back!"

It was a long walk, over 5 miles. I calculated that I probably said "Happy New Year" around 3,500 times, in three languages (English, Japanese, and Spanish). Had Maggie properly prepared me, I could have laid a little Francais on the crowds along Colorado Blvd! I was beat at the end. Sore throat, sore wrists (from waving) and sore feet!

From the left side of the float looking down Colorado Blvd.
That's the Wells Fargo entry (two stage coaches) up ahead.  The Rotarina in
front of me had won a lottery/raffle to be able to walk in the parade.
He was a software engineer from a town in Ohio.

When I got back to our hotel, I met back up with Kim, and our Portola friends to watch the Rose Bowl game in the hotel bar. We brought in finger food, smuggled in some beer and wine, and had the place to ourselves! It was the perfect end to a great adventure!

The end of a long day back at the hotel bar. Stanford won the game handily.

That's All!