We left Long Beach around 6:00 a.m. and had no problems with traffic or anything. Things were congested down by the Rose Parade route, but that was to be expected. Although there were hundreds of people who decided to camp out overnight to have a place along the parade route, that was NOT us. I bought tickets online (for $58/person) that gave us assigned seats in some stadium seating and paid $30 for parking in a parking garage. I would definitely go that way again.
We parked and watched the parade from the property of a community college. Here is what we saw on our way from the parking garage to the seating. It is a homeland security vehicle. There were several police officers hanging out as well. But other than that, the security really wasn't very tight. No one checked our bags or anything.
We got to the parking garage around 7:00 a.m. and then made our way to our seats. We had great seats. We were at the top of an aisle and we didn't have anybody sitting in front of us. This is the view from our seats. You can see the people sitting on the street are the ones who camped out overnight to get those seats.
We were right across the street from the LDS Institute building. The missionaries were out talking to people before the parade.
We had some time to wait for the parade to start. It started at 8:00 a.m. about 3-4 miles down the road from where we were sitting and first part of the parade didn't get to us until about 9:00 a.m. so we had time to sit and wait. It was chilly (40* when we got there) so Darrell went to Carl's Jr. and got us some hot chocolate (which is about the only time I'll go to that sleazy place.) We were well entertained with the street preachers and other random people that they let walk up and down Colorado Blvd.
I walked out on the street to get some pictures.
Here you can see the Goodyear blimp in the sky as it heads toward the stadium for the game.
Looking the other way down the street.
Here is what our section of seating looked like.
It's kind of hard to see, but the cops on motorcycles were in a V formation before the parade started.
And then they turned around and came back.
And then the parade started. I took pictures of all of the floats and the bands, but I will only put a few pictures on the blog. (You're welcome!) It was really cool to see everything live and in person. It was especially fun to watch for the floats we had seen being decorated the day before.
Some of the floats were out of order from where they were listed in the program, and this is most likely why: See the tow truck pulling it? Yep, some kind of malfunction.
Yay South Dakota (where I graduated from high school.)
This high school band from Texas was HUGE! It had like 650 people in it.
Some Spanish riders.
The pooper scoopers were a very important part of the parade. They came behind every horse unit.
This made me laugh. Somebody hired an airplane company to write how awful Trump was all over the sky.
Loved the Disney float.
This float had fire coming out of the dragon's mouth
We met the lady who helped design this Lutheran Ministries float the day before where we were watching the floats being decorated. (She had a booth where she was selling Rose Parade pins.)
The very end of the parade featured a bazillion tow trucks. I guess they had all been waiting along the route just in case they were needed. I guess if you're not needed, you join in on the fun.
We loved watching the Rose Parade live. (I guess if I had an actual bucket list, this would have been on it.)
