My mom came down from Idaho not only to see Baby for Christmas, but also to attend the Tournament of Roses Parade. A bummer, then, that we've had heavy rains for the past two days, and strong winds to blow the water sideways and get you cold and wet no matter what.

So we stayed home and watched the parade on a big screen, then drove over to the post-event float viewing. Those things impress at close range! Although the rain and wind had not let up, at least we could enjoy them at our own pace. There are literally miles of floats. The images below were culled from over 250.

Many of the floats have surfaces covered with glued-on flower petals or other kinds of plant material. The rain showed it no mercy, so many floats sported large bare patches. In fact, you could literally see the stuff falling off of them, or collecting on the ground beneath.

The floats sporting only unimaginitive glued-on petals treat the eye nicely, but even better are those that use various plant materials to mimic the color and texture of something else, such as brussels sprouts serving as warts on a frog's face. Those get a cheer for cleverness in my book.

In addition to water damage, most of the tall floats had their highest parts lowered to prevent them tipping over in the wind, which made for some awkward neck tilting, but the lack of traffic, parking, and crowds made up for that.




Disney's purple castle from a distance.




And close up, you can see that purple flowers make up the castle walls.




With Mom and Wendy for scale, you can see the size of these floats.




A reverse-angle, close-up of the beastie's head shows oranges, beans, and garlic(?) halves.




On the Optimist International float we have a frog prince...




...with brussel sprouts making up his warts!




A dragon (or horse?)...




...composed of broccoli and various kinds of flowers.




And here we have a couple of large fish...




...again, with oranges and beans for color and texture.




A rosebed... here and everywhere else, a single tiny vase holds up each and every flower's stem.




A huge range of colors, somewhat muted by overcast sky and rain, but still brilliant.




Various plants make a dinosaur's skin.




Check out the snail's shell: pineapples!




Just another example of the transitory nature of all these floats; here the rain washes away beans.