::The 124th Rose Parade::

When we drove home from our Christmas family time, we had 6 hours to think about how we would spend the remaining week of our vacation...I could see the wheels turning in Eric's mind as he drove. At one point he asked whether or not I thought it would be crazy to try to get to the Rose Parade in Pasadena...

I knew when he suggested it, his mind was about made up. And I'm glad it was-- it went really well and we had a great time! Our plan: 1. get up early. 2. find a spot near the end. 3. enjoy the floats, hoping people don't crowd us too much. (Should have added not using the porta potties into our plan...ugh!)

Here are a few highlights: 

Of the 23 Marching Bands, one of them was from Northwest Iowa. The MOC-Floyd Valley Marching Band "The Pride of the Dutchmen" marched the parade route in wooden shoes! Those are dedicated feet! 

My girls favorite part of the parade was the color guard. Any and all of them. 

I enjoyed the decorated bells of the tubas that went by-- even those who didn't paint their bells were decorated  ;) 

 
The Disney float was fun to see! 

• Each of the millions of flowers you see is in its own vial.
• It takes 15 tons of steel along with 10,000 feet (3,000 m) of chicken wire for the framework of a float. --taken from this source.

We left our house about 6am and found a parking place not too far from where we watched the parade. Since we were near the end of the route, we would have to wait a while for the parade to reach us...

 *The length of the parade is about 5.5 miles long and they travel at about 2.5 miles an hour.

• Each of the millions of flowers you see is in its own vial.
• Natural materials, such as bark, seeds, leaves and flowers cover the floats.  (again, same source)

And these are just a few more shots of floats we saw today. All of that work for one day! 
Wow!