Photo Essay: A Festival of Rose Parade Floats, 2025

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).

Photo Essay: Kicking Off Yet Another New Year at the Rose Parade (2025 Edition)

I don't go to the Rose Parade every year. After all, I didn't even go at all until 2015. And I skipped 2019 and 2022.

   

But this year, on the first day of 2025, the pull to watch those floats, marching bands, and horses crawl down Colorado Boulevard was so strong...

 

...that I woke up with a start (and without an alarm) at 8:15 a.m. after just five hours of sleep and made a beeline to Pasadena.

Photo Essay: Getting My Horse On In Preparation for the Rose Parade, 2025

It had been 10 years since I'd attended Equestfest, the Tournament of Roses equine exhibition, in the days before the Rose Parade. And this year I found myself revisiting a few things that I hadn't done for a decade. 

 

So I decided to go back. After all, I enjoy a day out with the horses.

Year In Review: 2024 Updates to Past Posts

As time goes on, my maintenance of this blog shifts more to updating information surrounding places I've already been rather than documenting places that are new (or new to me). 

And that gets a little depressing—because there are more businesses and buildings that close than those that are rescued. 

But we have to take our victories wherever we can get them. 

So this year, I feel lucky that I was able to report on the now-publicly accessible abandoned church at Heritage Square Museum and the newly-added TCM tour at Warner Brothers Studios.

Unfortunately, I also had to break the news of the passing of Heritage Square's beloved museum cat Belle Boy (who died in 2023). And the closure of the Mirage on the Vegas Strip. And the shut-down of the Los Angeles Times Olympic printing plant.

Those were all written about in new blog posts—but there are plenty of other updates I made that you may have missed. (I don't always share these to social media or in my email blast.)

So here are some updates I made in 2024—although not all of these necessarily actually happened this year.

Hilbert Museum of California Art

Photo Essay: Top Posts of 2024

It's true, 2024 was a rough year. 

Between health issues and a job loss, I've worried about what was going to happen to me. 

But somehow, I've managed to keep plugging away, as I always seem to do. 

And there are some good things on the horizon—namely, the history book I'm writing for the centennial of The Los Angeles Breakfast Club, which will be published in 2025. That's taking up a lot of my time now—time I could be spending "out there" exploring, and on here sharing my experiences. 

I'm certain the sacrifices I'm making now—including not doing any freelance writing for other publications—will pay off in the end. But that just means it may look as though I haven't been as productive this year. 

At least, for now. 

But I still had plenty of good stuff to share—so, as is my tradition at the end of each year, here follows my Top 10 posts of 2024. 

That's based on clicks/page views alone and not by some subjective judgment on their quality. So, if you'd like to know what other people were reading in 2024, take a gander here:

1. 

Photo Essay: Piru's Newhall Mansion is a 130-Year-Old Queen Anne Design in a 40-Year-Old Body

Photo Essay: Toluca Lake's Magical Holiday Parade, on Christmas Eve

Last year, in search of festive plans for Christmas Eve, I volunteered as a caroler for the Toluca Lake Magical Holiday Parade—formerly known as the "Christmas Caroling Truck" or the "Christmas Truck Parade." 

This year, to the sacrifice of invites for dinners at friends' homes, I decided to experience this long-standing neighborhood tradition from the ground as a spectator. 

Photo: The Hollywood Palladium—A Palace for Big Bands, Roller Disco, and More

Many theaters over the last 100 years (or more?) have been named the "Palace" to evoke grandeur and cultural sophistication. 

Photo: 2023

But there's another moniker that brings that idea of glamour to new heights: Palladium, which comes from the Greek goddess of the arts, Pallas Athena.

Photo Essay: Delving Into the Underground History of The Mission Inn's Cloistered Catacombs

I'd already taken the tour of The Mission Inn in Riverside, California once, in 2015. And normally that would mean I was done with it. 

But at Halloweentime this year, the hotel unveiled a series of "Spooktacular" tours that took guests into its underground tunnels—a.k.a. its "catacombs."

Photo Essay: Some Choo-Choo Cheer for the Holidays at South Coast Railroad Museum

I hadn't been to the Central Coast town of Goleta in years, probably over a decade—mostly because when I'm heading north past Santa Barbara, I take the inland rather than the coastal route. 

But when I finally got back there earlier this month, I knew there was once place I had to go: the South Coast Railroad Museum. 

 

Photo Essay: A Night of 4.5 Million Lights at the Mission Inn

It's been hanging over my head for 10 years now that I hadn't really done the Mission Inn's Festival of Lights "right" yet.