If you've ever sat on a Colorado Boulevard-adjacent curb, or on the couch in your den, and spied a particularly splendid float, the kind of float that's symbolic of the Rose Parade's particular glamour and pomp, you know this for certain: It'll be by you, and gone, in a matter of minutes.
That's the way it goes with parades, though, and the very name "parade" tells us that nothing is going to stop for us, even if we long for a more thorough look at the moving works of flowery art.
But the Tournament of Roses is on to the public's dig-deeper desires, desires which are traditionally fulfilled just after the famous procession and the next day, too, via a brakes-on float display.
The Post Parade: A Showcase of Floats Presented by Miracle-Gro begins when the 128th Rose Parade Presented by Honda wraps. That means a start time of 1 o'clock on Monday, Jan. 2 for the Pasadena spectacular, and a full day of wander-around possibilities on Tuesday, Jan. 3.
It's a ticketed event, priced at $13, and kids ages 5 and under can enter for free.
The Rose Parade is all about grand boulevards, with Orange Grove and Colorado springing instantly to mind, and A Showcase of Floats is no different, though the boulevards do change: Everything happens at Washington and Sierra Madre Boulevards.
Because the bud-covered, seed-bedecked mammoths do take up a lot of room, and because so many people want to see them when they're stopped and not moving, you can bet that parking is a question mark for this event.
The Scene
Want to find new things to do in Los Angeles? The Scene's lifestyle stories have you covered. Here's your go-to source on where the fun is across SoCal and for the weekend.
Rather than toodle around and around in the vicinity, consider taking a free shuttle from either Rose Bowl Stadium or Pasadena City College. The times of the shuttles are posted, so best study up or risk missing your ride.
Will the celebrated White Suiters, the easy-to-find Tournament of Roses volunteers, be out to help, answer questions, direct you? You bet.
Will you be able to eye, from just feet away, all of the detail and commendable effort that volunteers put into each float, from well-placed boughs of fir to bright bursts of colorful mums?
It really is true art, but the most ephemeral, see-it-now sort. And you can see it, without it moving by you at a moderate clip, after the Rose Parade near Washington and Sierra Madre Boulevards.
