6 comments
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
The exuberant 2024 Rose Parade looked and sounded splendid under cloudless blue skies. [Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
It wasn’t a return to pre-2019 crowds, but families in Michigan may still be making plans to move to California as the 135th Rose Parade scored a triumphant, picture-perfect performance, under deep blue postcard skies.
Tens of thousands of paradegoers lined the route and grandstands along the 5.5 mile route.
“I’m so excited,” Miki Borquez, “ I haven’t missed a parade in so many years.” Borquez scored a last minute ticket in the Orange Grove grandstands from a friend, she said.
Leticia Gonzales, a first-time visitor from Grand Rapids, Michigan, said she camped out overnight with local friends who lived in Arcadia, and was awakened by the parade at just after 8 a.m. at her Old Pasadena location.
“I was surprised how cold it was this morning,” she laughed, ‘And I’m from Michigan.”
With threats ranging from weather to labor strikes to protest demonstrations, the parade left the gate promptly at 8 a.m. led by Grand Marshal and Broadway star Audra McDonald.
Despite two security incidents further along down the parade route, the parade moved smoothly through its paces, though the “Armenian Melodies” float was sidelined temporarily, delaying the parade, but was still able to return to action.
Meanwhile, Michigan fans seem to greatly outnumber Alabama followers, at least in the stands at “TV Corner,” Colorado Boulevard and Orange Grove.
The parade’s theme “Celebrating a World of Music: The Universal Language,” was vividly demonstrated throughout the 40 floats and 20 bands, beginning with Honda’s opening show, which cleverly featured passengers in a Honda SUV dancing to the music while seated in the vehicle. Throwing open the doors, the dancers clambered onto the car’s rooftop before leaping off in a backward flip. All the dancers safely stuck their landings.
The Marine Corps Band made the big right hand turn east on Colorado Boulevard from Orange Grove as the traditional B2 Spirit Stealth bomber, stationed in Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, came screaming out of the eastern skies on its way down the 5.5 mile parade route, piloted by Major “Thunder” Beck, Captain “Hot” Dang, and Captain “Nitro” Tencati. It was a return to the parade after the bombers were grounded last for scheduled Air Force inspections.
Mayor Victor Gordo, who was forced to walk the parade route last year, when his assigned vintage car broke down, greeted paradegoers this year in a 1967 Crown Firecoach Triple Combination fire truck, accompanied by his family.
This year’s parade also featured two flyovers–the usual B2 bomber visit, as well as the “Tiger Squadron” of jets which accompanied the “Coding for Veterans” float.
Queen Naomi and her court, princesses Trinity Dela Cruz, Olivia Bohanec, Emmerson Tucker, Jessica Powell, Mia Moore-Walker and Phoebe Ho, rode regally, high above the audience displaying their best “parade waves.”
Finally, American Idol sixth season winner Jordin Sparks closed the parade with a fun and dynamic performance, featuring a team of dancers leaping, dancing and signing on and off their own float, to send fans home happy and rethinking their usual cold winters.
Get our daily Pasadena newspaper in your email box. Free.
Get all the latest Pasadena news, more than 10 fresh stories daily, 7 days a week at 7 a.m.
