We finally can mark off one of Chip's long time dreams of being at the Rose Parade on New Year's Day in Pasadena, California. We stayed in Beverly Hills at the Plaza Hotel which was mostly nice except for the thin walls and having to listen to the escapades of the woman in the room next door each night... We had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to leave for Pasadena and get to our parking lot by 5:30 a.m. We parked right behind the grandstand and really didn't have to wait long to get back out after the parade. Oh, and the parade, just beautiful. It's quite a long parade with 89 entries of mostly floral floats, bands and horses. We bought tickets to go view the floats at the end of the parade, however we had to wait until the parade was over and the floats were parked. Earlier in the week, Chip had found a little restaurant/bar off of Colorado called Lucky Baldwins with 65 beers on tap. Bit of a dump but fun...... After a few beers we headed to the viewing area and walked along the blocks and blocks and blocks of floats. Seeing them up close really was much more exciting for me than seeing the parade itself. The detail of the work put into these floats in such a short time is amazing. Some floral arrangements on certain floats were more aromatic than others.
We drove back to Beverly Hills for the evening and went to The Grove by CBS studios which is a nice outdoor mall with a few nice restaurants. Had a nice steak dinner at Morels French Steakhouse and Bistro then drove back to the Beverly Hills Plaza.
On Jan 2 we decided to drive back to Pasadena and tour the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens. We saw the Blue Boy and Pinkie paintings and tou
red the beautiful gardens. I snapped an awesome pic of a hummingbird! After the Huntington we went to the Norton Simon Museum where we saw some Van Goghs and quite a few Edgar Degas sculptures. My legs were about to fall off when we decided we had better go somewhere for dinner. Driving down Colorado Blvd we were using the GPS to find an Italian restaurant when we decided on Il Fornaio. It was on a really cool section of Colorado Blvd with lots of shopping. The restaurant was great and while at the bar we were talking with two couples. The younger couple, who lived in Las Vegas, had never heard of the Rose Parade. Unbelievable!! Or is it just me?!?
We drove back to Beverly Hills for the evening and went to The Grove by CBS studios which is a nice outdoor mall with a few nice restaurants. Had a nice steak dinner at Morels French Steakhouse and Bistro then drove back to the Beverly Hills Plaza.
On Jan 2 we decided to drive back to Pasadena and tour the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens. We saw the Blue Boy and Pinkie paintings and tou
red the beautiful gardens. I snapped an awesome pic of a hummingbird! After the Huntington we went to the Norton Simon Museum where we saw some Van Goghs and quite a few Edgar Degas sculptures. My legs were about to fall off when we decided we had better go somewhere for dinner. Driving down Colorado Blvd we were using the GPS to find an Italian restaurant when we decided on Il Fornaio. It was on a really cool section of Colorado Blvd with lots of shopping. The restaurant was great and while at the bar we were talking with two couples. The younger couple, who lived in Las Vegas, had never heard of the Rose Parade. Unbelievable!! Or is it just me?!?
