Happy New Year, the Pasadena Way

photo by John Sandel

Please do click on this panorama to enlarge it. John took it with his iPhone inside the Rosemont Pavilion last night, while volunteers and professionals worked feverishly to finish a dozen Tournament of Roses parade floats.

Actually, not feverishly. Fever implies heat and it was chilly in there. But they were working hard. It is estimated that 80,000 volunteer hours will go into this year's Tournament of Roses parade and festival.

Thanks to our friend Terry Griest, a white-suiter and sometime PDP guest photographer, we were treated to a VIP tour. We didn't have to wait in long lines and were were able to get down on the main floor of the pavilion to see the floats up close.

The panorama gives you an idea of the enormity of the place and the work going on there, but it's only an idea. The Rosemont Pavilion houses 12 floats; there will be 47 floats in Saturday's parade. Every surface of the floats is decorated with organic matter, from flowers to coffee beans to kidney beans to carrots. I was intrigued by a plant called "silver leaf," used to decorate the shining armor of a knight on the Bayer company's "Camelot" float.

Here's our tour guide David (thus the term, "white-suiter"). When you see this eagle in the parade it will be at the head of a float ridden by Native American singers and dancers of tribes from all over the United States. And it won't be wearing that plastic shower cap.

If you're camping out on Colorado Blvd. tonight, stay safe and warm, ya nuts!

Here's a photo of how things looked at about 2:00 this afternoon along Colorado Blvd. John was driving and I shot this out his window. Things were just beginning to get a little insane.

Happy New Year from Pasadena!