Colorado Countdown : Fans Stake Out Rose Parade Viewing Spots as Floats Get Ready to Roll
Barney the outsize dinosaur would have felt right at home in Pasadena on Sunday amid the throng of purple-garbed Northwestern University fans patronizing the boutiques and eateries along Colorado Boulevard.
That is, if he could have squeezed his prehistorically large backside past the thousands of early birds nailing down prime sidewalk viewing spots for the Rose Parade.
In an annual New Year’s Eve ritual that is like a miles-long pajama party, hordes of hardy folks spend one or more nights sitting on concrete to claim the right to spend several more hours standing on concrete.
“It seems like a lot of fun,” said Angie Quiroz, 25, of San Bernardino, who came with her sister, Elaine Olaiz, to get a spot. “It’s something you want to do at least one time.”
The corner of Colorado and Orange Grove where the sisters planned to sleep was already filled with blankets, tents, beach chairs and coolers of food.
Nearby, Sofia Carrillo, 7, also of San Bernardino, was already getting impatient, with more than 14 hours to wait until the first float would roll down Colorado Boulevard. “I just want to see the parade,” she complained. “Right now all we get to do is wait.”
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In anticipation of the crowds, the businesses, condominiums and homes along the parade route were sealed off with chain-link fences several days ago and portable toilets were placed at strategic sidewalk spots. Tour buses, filled with parade participants and enthusiastic fans of the oft-pitied Northwestern Wildcats, began trundling up and down Pasadena streets on Friday.
The fans’ difficult-to-ignore team color was very much in evidence--on hats, T-shirts, flags waved from cars and even fingernails--throughout the city. Anything purple--as well as anything with the parade’s rose logo--was being snapped up at the Tournament Souvenirs shop.
The Wildcats haven’t played in the Rose Bowl since 1949, when they beat UC Berkeley, 20-14.
Les and Sherry Unger are Northwestern grads and rabid fans who only had to drive from Long Beach to prepare for their team’s appearance today. In the 30 or so years since they left their alma mater, they’ve become half-hearted USC backers. But today their loyalties will be undivided.
“We can finally root for our alma mater,” Sherry Unger said.
Outside the Rose Bowl itself, decorators, designers and mechanics clambered aboard floats, making last-minute adjustments.
“Everything is in place,” said Bette Lou Barker, floral production manager for Charisma Inc., which designed four floats, including the one carrying the queen’s court. “We are in the process of preparing repair kits. People like to run out and rip flowers from the deck.”
Barker said her float crews will be equipped with extra flowers, ladders and six types of glue to repair floats, which can cost as much as $300,000 to build and decorate.
As Lawrence Bongle watched the last-minute preparations, he thought he saw an omen in the quantity of purple petals being applied.
“I think that is because this is going to be the year of the purple,” said Bongle, whose grandson is Northwestern fullback Matthew Hartle.
Strolling past the floats’ hobby horses, dollhouses and cartoon characters illustrating the parade’s theme, “Kids, Laughter and Dreams,” Bongle said watching the Rose Parade has been a tradition at home in Door County, Wis., for years. Close up, he said, the floats are thrilling.
“It’s hard to believe they are really made up of all these flowers,” he said.
Times staff writer Richard Lee Colvin contributed to this story.
