WINE AND ROSES: The Rose Parade and Exploring Wineries in California

 

May I give you a rose?

THE ROSE PARADE WITH ROAD SCHOLARS

We've always wanted to see The Rose Parade and when the trip appeared in a Road Scholars email, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.  The program included working on floats, "band fest", a grandstand seat at the parade, and an up-close view of the floats at "float fest".

On Friday we volunteered to help decorate floats.  Our "float barn" (a big warehouse) had 6 floats in various stages of completion.  We cut and prepared flowers for three of them.  The roses and Dutch Irises came to us in 5-gallon buckets (75 rose stems).  Our job was to cut them to about 3-4 inches, strip the leaves and put them in vials with water and preservative. Luckily, they had already been "de-thorned". These would then be transferred to the floats.  David worked the guillotine cutter, I would strip the leaves, and we both helped put them in vials.

Our group processed at least 50 buckets of roses = 3750 roses!!

Vials

Completed Trays

The Dutch Irises had to be cut with a razor blade

Stripping them and putting them in vials was more labor-intensive!

Our pink roses went into the border of the Kaiser Permanente Float
They painted the bikes with glue and stuck petals all over them!

"Our" float: see our pink roses below the big yellow ones!
The heart was made of red carnations.

"Our" roses on the float

Our orange roses bordered The Wizard of Oz characters.

Our Dutch Irises bordered the Louisana Steamboat

This was the Sweepstakes (or Grand) Prize winner.  It was in "our" barn, but we didn't work on it.

The pictures of the completed floats are from "Float fest" on our last day.  After the parade, they drove the floats to a high school parking lot and we got to walk around and look at them "up close and personal"  While seeing them in the parade was exciting, seeing them here was even better.  We could say, "I cut that rose!"

I do not have any pictures from "band-fest".  It was raining.  We watched 4 bands perform. The bottom dropped out for the 4th band and they were literally sweeping the water off the xylophones!!

THE PETERSON MUSEUM

There is a tradition that the parade is never held on Sunday.  When the parade first started in the 1880s the floats were horse-drawn.  The churches did not want a parade on Sunday and said the horses would upset the horses that were tied up for worship.  So they made a pact with the Lord:  "We won't have a parade on Sunday.  And you will not rain on our parade."  The parade has only had rain less than 2% of the time, and never when it was delayed until a Monday!

As a result, Sunday was a free day for us and Road Scholar offered everyone a bus into town and tickets to the art museum.  The Peterson Museum of Automobiles was across the street.  We decided to spend our time there.

The outside of the Peterson, "makes you look!"

On the upper floors, we saw the original Bat-mobile, Starsky and Hutch's car, and the Delorean from Back to the Future.  We also saw a replica of the very first motor car and a Tucker.  But our favorite gallery was the half of the first floor that housed the Teslas.  Dave was especially excited!   I had seen pictures of the cybertuck, but had no idea how big it actually was!

Do you really want this?  It won't fit in our carport!!

The Wind Tunnel markings were really art!

And speaking of Teslas... On the last day of the Road Scholar tour, we rented a Tesla (Tessie vs. Ruby) from Turo, which is like VRBO for cars:  you rent from an individual.  We figured that renting a Tesla came with about a $200 premium.  However we were able to plug the Tesla in at night at our Air B&B and only had to use a for-pay charger twice (less than $30) and the owner picked us up, and then at the end took us to the airport, saving us two fairly expensive Ubers.  When you put all of that together and consider we did not buy any of California's $5/gallon gas, we probably didn't pay any premium.  

Our friends the Wassums were visiting their daughter in the Hollywood Hills, so we went out to see Kate and Matt, and Brynn's new house.  It sits on a very steep hill overlooking the Hollywood sign.  Brynn was really excited to show me her room!  

SEAN, LAURIE, WINE, AND A CLOSE CALL

The next day we picked up Sean and Laurie at the Santa Barbara airport and spent 4 days exploring wineries around Santa Barbara and Solvang.  Our days were filled driving around GREEN hills of California wine country (usually they are brown or "golden") and visiting wineries; our nights were spent on terrific conversations where we solved most of the world's issues and caught up on our grandchildren! 

Of course, we had to try the Aebleskivers in Solvang!

Our favorite remains Demetria.  We were enjoying it so much, I forgot to take pictures of Logan and his great beard and heavy pours!  

On Saturday we went to the Santa Barbara Farmer's Market and to Firestone Walker Brewery.  As we drove around Santa Barbara, Montecito, and along the coast, little did we know that by Monday they would be underwater.  While we had been dancing around showers the whole time we were in Southern California, only the "band fest" had heavy rain.  Most of storms remained north of us. About 12 hours after we dropped Sean and Laurie off at the Santa Barbara Airport on Sunday, it closed due to flooding.  Our hearts are with those who experienced the awful force of nature.

We saw this sign: