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Day 3: January 2nd, 2006
Everything's Coming up Roses
We got up at 6am to catch the subway into Pasadena. After a quick shower, we drove down to
the closest Metro station (at Hollywood and Vine) and took the Red line East. We were
expecting a lot more people on the train in... and once we got to Union Station, many more
people got on the train.
We took the Gold line almost to the end of the line and walked in the rain down to the parade
route. It was just miserable weather. We stopped in a 99-cents store to try and find some
additional gear to protect ourselves from the weather. We ended up getting a plastic tarp and
some towels... but it was really an amazing store. Those types of stores in Texas have
other items that are more expensive or the store is small... but this place was for real.
Spectators in the rainy weather |
Back on our way to our granstand seats, we walked down the middle of the street since the parade
had yet to reach that part of the route. We were stopped by a young woman from the LA Times
and "interviewed" about our experience thus far. It was great... we got to tell her about
our t-shirt sales and about this site... and to top it off she was from Texas. The story she's
writing is supposedly for tomorrow's edition of the Times. We'll have to keep an eye out for it.
We finally made our way to the grandstand and Jimmy went up and sat in the seats while Jonn went down to
McDonals to get some much needed breakfast. The rain really began coming down hard... thankfully the
people sitting behind us were also Texas fans and shared their ponchos until Jonn came back with
our Texas ones.
The parade finally was underway, led by the band from Alabama A&M. The floats were beautiful,
although some were showing some wear and tear from the windy, rainy weather. The crowd was
electric, especially for the marching bands. There was a HUGE band from Allen, Texas
which played March Grandioso as they passed our seats. We weren't the only ones
chanting along. The USC float and band marched by, followed almost
immediately by the Texas float and Longhorn Band (see video below).
We stayed and watched a few more floats until we decided we'd had enough. The weather was getting worse
and the parade seemed to be having a lot of pacing problems. So we headed out of the grandstand
and started walking along the parade route back towards the Metro station.
Watch the Longhorn Band in the Rose Parade
Download the movie
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The lead float in the parade |
The 600 member Allen,TX band |
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