Going to Floatfest after the Rose Parade is a totally different experience than watching the Rose Parade live—but even so, sometimes I only do one or the other.
This year, I did both—mostly because I left the Rose Parade a little early and missed a couple of floats (and was feeling so ill during the parade I was sure I'd missed out on a lot of details).
Getting a second look at the incredibly detailed floats gave me the chance to find the Fearless Flyer on the Rose Parade float...
...admire the irises and onions of the Cal Poly Universities' Loch Ness Monster float...
...and the turtle of the Torrance float, "What a Beautiful Day"...
...and the jalapeño pepper-textured shell on its back.
On New Year's Day, I'd completely missed the City of Hope float, "A Beautiful Day for Hope," which won the award for most outstanding presentation of color and color harmony through floral design...
...so I was glad to get close enough to read the inspirational inscriptions written along the peacock features (in... fava beans?)...
...like "Better Together" and "Dream Big" as well as encouraging words like "Strong" and "Conquer."
I'd also missed AIDS Healthcare Foundation's tribute to the 100th anniversary of Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush—the float called "Home Sweet Home," which honored "resilience, creativity, and the importance of having a place to call home."
Unfortunately I didn't get to see the animations of Chaplin dancing with his costar (as his "Little Tramp" character, perhaps the most famous homeless character in history), as they did down Colorado Boulevard. But the exuberance of finding a home and getting the girl—their "Best Day Ever"—still clearly came across.
In order to have the best day ever, you need to have the best night ever—well, at least, the best night's sleep, according to Kaiser Permanente, whose "More Healthy Days for More Healthy Years" float won the Wrigley Legacy Award for most outstanding display of floral presentation, float design, and entertainment.
The Burbank float's volcano was no longer exploding at Floatfest, but the animations were running...
...and it was still a-lava fun, with all its prehistoric creatures grinning from ear to ear...
...including a baby dino still spinning in his shell.
Upon a closer look. the Louisiana float (built by Artistic Entertainment Services in Azusa) reminded me of the long tradition of oversized animals taking over Rose Parade floats, like the pink hippo of 2015 (which was built for Zappos by the now-closed Paradiso Parade Floats in Irwindale).
Its crab looked too cute to boil!
So why not bowl instead?
Go Bowling's first-ever entry in the Rose Parade celebrated America's most popular sport (that is, to participate in), with a giant bowling ball crashing into pins to score 300 in "A Perfect Game."
And what a great Google-style "neon" sign, made of lentils and mums.
The La Cañada Flintridge float was in its full glory, running its animations and giving visitors a peek into the inner workings of all its pieces (including where the driver sat inside the flying saucer, a.k.a. the "satellite float").
Narratively, this "Rover Rendezvous" float was conceived as a kind of sequel to La Cañada's 2017 float, "Backyard Rocketeer"...
...imagining that, seven years later, that little boy had grown up, become an astronaut, and gone to space.
And, oh, the out-of-this-world friends he made when he got there!
Well, man's best friend was the star of the Alhambra float (winner of the most outstanding float from a participating city)...
...while kidney donors and recipients had danced to Rob Base's "It Takes Two" on top of CORE Kidney's float for kidney awareness (sadly not there for Floatfest).
All these floats I was happy to see again, from a front-row seat and not from the sidewalk sidelines.
I got to notice the cute little bumbles on the Kiwanis International float, "Bee-ing Together"...
...and the tiny botanical details on the big cats of the Lions International float.
And boy, did I start bawling again when I saw that one of the adopted dog figures on the Humane Society float needed mobility assistance from a canine cart.
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