Rose Parade (Los Angeles, Pasadena, Orange: home, college, living in)

[californio sur]

Just curious how many posters have attended the Rose Parade each New Years Day? I live in Pasadena so I have attended quite a few parades including sleeping outside on the sidewalk in the cold! But for anyone who has never been to a Rose parade it is well-worth attending some day.

Today's LA Times has a story on the "Quick Facts" that I thought were interesting. Here are a few:

How many flowers are used on the floats? = 18 million

How many horses are ridden in each parade? = 300

What is the most-played song in the parade? = "Everything is Coming Up Roses"

What is the average temperature in Pasadena on parade day? = 68f

How many times has it rained on the parade since 1890? = 10 times [1895, 1899, 1906, 1910, 1916, 1922, 1934, 1937, 1955 & 2006]

How many people watched the first parade in 1890? = 2000

How many people attend the parade on average? = 700,000 [on average 500,000 come from outside Los Angeles]

How many people watch the parade on television? = 51.9 million just in the U.S. [it is also telecast to 220 countries].

What is the revenue generated in Southern California because of the parade? = $400 million

How long is the parade? = 5.5 miles

Famous people who served as Grand Marshall of the parade? = President Eisenhower, President Nixon, Bob Hope [many times], Shirley Temple [many times], Supreme court chief justice Earl Warren, General Omar Bradley, Walt Disney, Arnold Palmer, John Wayne, Hank Aaron, President Ford, Frank Sinatra, Pele, Kermit the Frog , Carole Burnett, Bill Cosby, etc.

[Twinkle Toes]

Never attended, but my husband is friends with a guy named Raoul who brings his parrots to the parade and puts them on some of the floats. I have never met the guy myself, but if he's a bird guy - he's A-OK in my book!

[MattClyde]

nah I don't go to those, maybe I will in the next couple of years but I am going to be gone this new years. I have watched them though, there was a recent one and it rained. Not a fun parade to watch.

[BluSpark]

Wow, that is quite a list of Grand Marshalls. Seems like they do NOT get people like that anymore.

The Rose Parade is a great event but I admit I've only been two times. Once as a kid. The most recent time was in the early 1990's when I was a college student living in Pasadena. I lived less than a block from Colorado Blvd so I just woke up and walked outside.

So. Calif. is often accused of lacking any tradition or community. But the Rose Parade is one of those great local events that counters that notion. I have days I wish I'd never moved out of Pasadena.

[Curmudgeon]

I was going to go one year while I was in college but something, don't remember what, came up and I didn't. One less thing checked off the bucket list!

[BlackShoe]

Once. When I was 12 lived in Pasadena, and hiked to the parade with a friend. With todays traffic and crowds, unlikely to ever see another one. Interest on New Years Day is now on football, not parades.

[nmnita]

We used to live in San Rafeal Hills and could walk to the parade (long walk) we did it many years. A few years I went with boyfriends while in college and we would drive, arrive really early, park and then walk a mile or so to the Orange GRove area. Later hubby worked for a company that had seats at the east end of the parade. We would go almost every year or I would stay home and fix a huge Mexican brunch for our friends while they would go with hubby to the parade. That was many years ago, I would think of fighting the crowds today.

Nita

[Backspace]

So they picked highly successful and 100% Southern, Paula Deen as the 2010 Rose Parade Grand Marshall?

She might help bring some real world feeling back to the "presented by Honda Rose Parade".

[Rhenzanite]

I rode my horse Gammy in the Rose parade back in 2001, it was actually his 7th parade at the ripe old age of 23

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

And the parade is never on a Sunday. On years that New Years falls on a Sunday the parade is moved to Monday.