The flowers popped with color on a gray day, oceans of hydrangea and blue iris, a volcano pouring lava of orange roses, a giraffe of 16,000 yellow chrysanthemums.
The cool weather this time foiled the Tournament of Roses’ century-old campaign to flaunt Southern California’s mild winters. But for the parade’s 128th venture down Colorado Boulevard, the petals all but glowed under the gunmetal sky.
“It’s so much better than TV,” said Anna Herwig, a freshman at Penn State who came to see her team play USC in the Rose Bowl. “I always watch it, but it’s so much more colorful and exciting in person.”
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Beth Campbell, left, dressed as a medieval princess, wave to the crowd as the Rose Parade float from the City of Torrance makes its way along Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena on Monday.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
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Royal Court Queen Victoria Castellanos of Temple City High School during the Rose Parade.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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American Armenian Rose Float Association, Inc. “Field of Dreams” float during the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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The Dole Packaged Foods “Spirit of Hawaii” float won the Sweepstakes trophy at the Rose Parade on Monday.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 2, 2017: Marching band member Ninemi Ortiz from Broken Arrow High School in Oklahoma, reacts as she and her band mates reach the end of the 5.5 Rose Parade route on January 2, 2017 in Pasadena,California.(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
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Netflix’s “Soar Beyond Imagination” float during the Rose Parade in Pasadena.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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The city of Torrance’s float, titled “Be Your Own Knight.”
(Christina House / For The Times)
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Mandisa Mduba, 3, Adeline Borno and Maneo Tshabalala, right, from Riverside, watch floats pass during the parade.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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The UPS Store, Inc. “Books Bring Us Together” float during the 2017 Rose Parade in Pasadena on Monday. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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The Grove City High School marching band from Ohio performs on the parade route.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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The UPS Store Inc. “Books Bring Us Together” moves along the Rose Parade route on Monday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
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The AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s “To Honor & Remember Orlando” float during the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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A dragon menaces on the city of Torrance’s “Be Your Own Knight” float during the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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Western Asset Management Co.’s “Prosperity in the Wild” float won the Director’s Trophy.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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The American Armenian Rose Float Assn.’s “Field of Dreams!” float.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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Students from Pulaski High School in Wisconsin perform during the Rose Parade on Monday.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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Sierra Madre’s “The Cat’s Away” float travels the parade route on Monday.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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Cal Poly University’s “A New Leaf” float during the Rose Parade on Monday.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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The Bachelor “Echoes of Love” float during the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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Carl Dreizler of Redondo Beach, USC Class of 1976, cheers the university’s marching band as he takes in his 17th Rose Parade.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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Spectators fill the grand stands at the 2017 Rose Parade in Pasadena on Monday.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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The USC marching band performs during the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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The Donate Life “Teammates in Life” float during the Rose Parade on Monday.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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The Western Asset Management Company “Prosperity in the Wild” float features a snake during the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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Lutheran Laymen’s League “Celebrate Jesus†float rolls during the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday, January 2, 2017 in Pasadena, Calif. (Christina House/ For The Los Angeles Times) (Christina House / For The Times)
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The New Buffalo Soldiers during the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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24 Hour Fitness’ “Do More With Your 24” float in the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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The Penn State marching band performs in the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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An L.A. County Sheriff’s deputy talks to spectators near the end of the Rose Parade on Monday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
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The Rotary float, “Doing Good in the World,” won the Princesses’ Trophy for most beautiful float 35 feet or under.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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United States Air Force Total Force Band performs during the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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Members of the Los Hermanos Banuelos Charro Team take part in the parade in Pasadena.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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Dancers from Fort Worth perform with the Opening Show float during the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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Speectators take pictures as the Rose Parade passes on Sierra Madre Boulevard on Monday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
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Rose Parade route cleaners entertain the crowd on Monday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
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Tournament of Roses 2017 grand marshal, Olympian Greg Louganis, left, a five-time Olympic medalist diver, in Rose Parade on Monday.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit flies over the 2017 Rose Parade.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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Broken Arrow High School band performs during the 2017 Rose Parade.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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Color guard of the Westlake High School Chaparral band of Austin performs during the 2017 Rose Parade.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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The color guard of the Westlake High School Chaparral Band of Austin, Texas, performs on the parade route.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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The Martin Luther King Jr. High School marching band leads the 2017 Rose Parade on Monday.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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Spectators watch band members during the Rose Parade on Monday.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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Performers in the opening show warm up before the parade starts.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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Grace Dreifuerst, 14, of Westlake High School in Austin, Texas, stays warm prior to marching in the 2017 Rose Parade.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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Dancers from Fort Worth gather prior to the Rose Parade on Monday.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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Members of the Niceville High School Eagle Pride band from Florida, gather prior to the Rose Parade.
(Christina House / For The Times)
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People wrapped in sleeping bags await the start of the 2017 Rose Parade in Pasadena on Monday morning.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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The bleachers begin to fill up before the start of the 2017 Rose Parade in Pasadena on Monday morning.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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Sheriff’s deputies patrol Colorado Boulevard early Monday morning before the start of the Rose Parade in Pasadena. Heightened security measures are being taken along the parade route in response to recent terrorist attacks that used trucks as weapons.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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People are bundled up on Colorado Blvd. as they wait for the start of the 2017 Rose Parade in Pasadena Monday morning. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
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Skylar Lloyd, left, and Cam Jarman, both 12, eat cotton candy as Michelle Youngblood, center, settles in comfortably on an air mattress along Colorado Boulevard.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
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Linda Betts waves to drivers as she settles into a spot along Colorado Boulevard. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
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Jon Deno pulls his grandson, Caleb Deno, 4, along Colorado Boulevard in a custom-built tricycle with a wagon carrying a tricycle built by Deno himself.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
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Hailey Cox, 10, gets comfortable on an inflatable cushion along Colorado Boulevard.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
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Cam Jarman, 12, Skylar Lloyd, 12, and Michelle Youngblood get comfortable in their space on Colorado Boulevard.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
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Hailey Cox, 10, plays a game with her grandmother, Linda Betts, not pictured, as they settle in for the evening on Colorado Boulevard. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
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People claim their spaces along Colorado Boulevard on the eve of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Sofia Refai came with her daughter from Sweden to visit her sister in Pasadena and take in the parade she had read about. If the Valley Hunt Club, which started the parade in 1892, had been trying to lure Scandinavians like her, they’d need not have worried about the sun.
“This is like spring in Sweden,” she said, invigorated by the balmy 49° air. She put on a sweater only because her sister made her.
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She’d been reading about the parade in a newspaper in Stockholm, and found the experience more than lived up to its name.
“It’s beautiful,” Refai said. “The atmosphere is so cheery. All the people are so happy.”
Law enforcement heightened security, barricading 56 streets connected to the parade route to prevent truck attacks like the ones last year in Berlin and Nice, France.
The 41 floats, interspersed by 19 marching bands and 20 equestrian units, capped a contentious year in America and abroad with a look of Old World grace and whimsy, brought to life by heavy machinery and ever-more-complex animatronics.
Honda’s “Hope Blooms Forever” opened the parade, themed “Echoes of Success,” with a giant origami crane and a mythical phoenix.
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Tucked in the back third of the float, in a windowless space, Roger Thomas steered the heavy metal beast, with directions from an observer up front. He kept the speed at 2 1/2 miles per hour for the 5 1/2-mile route.
“Imagine driving your car down the street with a blindfold and your passenger telling you where to go,” he said before he set off. “With a billion people watching.”
Accompanying Thomas and the observer were an animator, operating the float’s moving parts, and a “bird man,” Luthor Nelson, who at two designated moments for the cameras released 50 white “doves.”
They were actually Nelson’s own white homing pigeons. He would release a total of 198 birds, in four batches, from two floats.
He expected them to circle around once and then fly off, arriving at his home, 12 miles southeast in Hacienda Heights, long before he got there.
Such is the blend of modern and ancient that come together in every float — hydraulics and horticulture, robotics and pigeon fanciers.
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A smoke-breathing dragon threatening a castle represented the city of Torrance.
Lucy’s Pet Care stirred the crowd with the longest and heaviest float in the parade, featuring a tropical paradise with an 80-foot-long working wave pool. Bulldogs, pugs and other canines in life vests rode the waves back and forth on small surfboards. The entry was meant to highlight the struggle to reduce the number of dogs and cats euthanized every year.
A float in honor of those who died in the Orlando nightclub massacre featured a giant flora dove flying over a field of 49 stars, for each of those killed in the attack. Messages of comfort, consolation, love and hope hung from a tree next to a rainbow, a symbol of gay pride.
Major corporations, small cities, philanthropic groups, schools, sports teams, even a reality television show — “The Bachelor” — participated in the venerable parade. This year, with New Year’s Day on a Sunday, the event was held Jan. 2, abiding a long-standing tradition implemented so that it would not stir horses tied up outside churches and thus disrupt the services.
The city of Downey’s float evoked that era with a mining cart whooshing down a roller coaster through a frontier town, a small-scale Thunder Mountain rolling through Pasadena.
The float was one of only a handful at the parade that were designed, built and decorated entirely by volunteers.
Kelley Roberts joked that it’s “stupidity” that drives him to be one of those volunteers every year. He spent the previous night putting the last touches on the float, his eyes watering from the cinnamon used as part of the decoration.
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Now 47, Roberts got his start in the Rose Parade at the age of 10, when he defied his parents’ orders and sneaked out of the house to help a neighbor decorate the Downey float that year, which he remembers as featuring a dragon.
“And the rest is Downey Rose float history,” said Roberts, now the construction chairman for the Downey Rose Float Assn.
Even with volunteers, the group has to raise tens of thousands of dollars — as much as $90,000 some years, Roberts said. Flowers alone can cost from $12,000 to $40,000, and then there’s the steel structure, welding supplies, foam, paint and glue.
Roberts said he worked on the Gold Rush float almost every evening since August. He designed and built the float’s roller coaster, which he planned to ride during the parade.
“Really, it’s the passion to see if you can take that picture and turn it into a 3-D reality,” he said.
Victoria Villegas and her husband chose to visit their daughter in Pasadena this year for one reason: to attend for the first time the parade they grew up watching on television.
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“I feel like I’ve been here,” said Villegas, 54, who traveled down from Bradley, a small town in Central California. “New Year’s Day, that’s all you watched.”
Wrapped in sleeping bags and blankets, with their feet propped up on a cart storing their belongings, the couple had considered bringing a portable heater but worried about security.
“We said if they see us with that propane tank, they’ll probably throw us out,” Villegas said.
The couple noticed a strong police presence that increased into the early morning hours, with several officers on foot chatting with parade-goers.
“I like how interactive they’ve been, they’ve been so friendly,” Villegas said.
The couple said that while terrorist attacks at public events such as the Boston Marathon did not discourage them, they were more vigilant now about their surroundings than they were in the past.
“Nothing’s stopped us,” Villegas said. “We’re still in that mentality of, ‘If we stop, then they win.’”
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When the parade wrapped up without incident, workers unplugged the water-filled barricades used to stop vehicles.
Water flooded the streets as people tried to leave.
“I thought we were in a water shortage,” one man joked about the drought.
“Now we get to walk on water,” another said.
The first of Nelson’s pigeons were already arriving at his home. All 198 would be accounted for before the Rose Bowl game started at 2 p.m.
nina.agrawal@latimes.com
hailey.branson@latimes.com
Times staff writers Makeda Easter, Melissa Etehad, Victoria Kim, Joe Mozingo and Alene Tchekmedyian contributed to this report.
Nina Agrawal is a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. She previously reported for WLRN-Miami Herald News and for the Latin American affairs magazine Americas Quarterly. A Southern California native, Agrawal is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and School of International and Public Affairs.
Hailey Branson-Potts is a Metro reporter who joined the Los Angeles Times in 2011. She reports on a wide range of issues and people, with a special focus on communities along the coast. She grew up in the small town of Perry, Okla., and graduated from the University of Oklahoma.
