Long Live the Queen/Strike Up the Band/Happy New Year

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Here are the highlights of this action-packed day: 

1988 Rose Queen Julie King, still perky and pretty after all these years, gave an anecdote-filled presentation on the life of a Rose Queen and her court.  In her day the queen and her court were issued 26 piece wardrobes and notebooks with spreadsheets listing all their appearances and which items from their wardrobe they were to wear for each event.  On parade day they hopped into the official limo at 2 a.m., with their hair freshly washed, wrapped in a towel.  They were then whisked off for hours of hair and make-up and sitting around waiting for the parade to start, wearing warm slippers beneath their flowing gowns, and only changing into their heels when  they descended back to earth at the end of the parade and had to make the rounds of post-parade VIP events.   

Her parade Grand Marshal was Gregory Peck, who was as gracious and thoughtful as we would imagine him to be in the role of Atticus Finch.  He and his wife sent a limosine bearing a huge tower of roses to her house to congratulate her on her high school graduation.

We watched a DVD about what it takes for a high school band to make it to the Rose Bowl Parade, then attended Bandfest, a spectacular presentation by six Marching Bands that will be in this year’s Rose Parade.  Their musical ability was outstanding, but we were blown away by the precision, the intricacy and the originality of their marching routines, including a whole lot of dancing, flag spinning, baton twirling, and gun tossing talents of exhibited by their girls’ squads.  

But, most impressive of all were the numbers of kids in each of the bands who were high performers academically as well as instrumentally—each band proudly cited statistics accomplishments like 90% of band members on the honor roll, a majority of Band Seniors in National Honor Society, many members with perfect 4.0 or higher grade point averages, and so on.

The temperature hit the 80s, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the entertainment was phenomenal, and we even had a little gelato snack break.  What a wonderful way to spend our last day of 2011.

Our final special event of this very busy last day of 2011 was, of course, a New Year’s Eve Party.  All 300 of Rose Parade Road Scholars gathered in our hotel’s Grand Ballroom to celebrate the occasion in classic style—with a fancy dinner consumed while wearing silly New Year’s hats and watching the festivities on Times Square, which were projected on a huge screen in the front of the ballroom.  As the ball dropped in New York, we all tooted our horns, tossed our streamers, exchanged champagne toasts and kissed our loved ones.  By celebrating the New Year on Eastern Standard Time while actually being in the Pacific Time Zone, we managed to get to bed at a reasonable hour without feeling like we missed anything--yet another thing to love about this place!

P.S. When we visited New York City this summer, we had the opportunity to write messages on small squares of tissue paper that we were promised would be released as confetti when the ball dropped, sending our wishes out to welcome the year (and land on some unsuspecting person below with an anonymous cosmic message).  So, we were very excited to see all the confetti flying around Times Square at midnight, knowing that our wishes were being sent out into the universe.

Roses, Roses, Roses!

December 30, 2011
Our Road Scholar Tournament of Roses Parade adventure officially began with dinner and introductions last night, but the real kick-off to greatness was today, when we spent a whole day working on floats that will be in the parade.  Actually, we didn’t literally work on the floats themselves, but we worked on the flowers that will go on the floats.

The roses that are applied to floats are first inserted into water-filled vials that have a pointed tip which is punched into foam on the float surface.  I can proudly say that I put roses into over a thousand vials. 

 

White roses, red roses, yellow roses, peachy roses and pink—the batches kept coming, and our team of Road Scholars trimmed their long stems to little four inch stubs and stuck them into the rubber-topped vials with precision.  The rose blooms had to be flush with the top of the vial—no stem sticking above the cap—and the cut end of the stem had to be near the bottom of the vial but not touching it, to maximize the time that it could keep sucking up water to stay fresh.  Getting it just right was harder than it sounds.  Also, thorns presented a constant hazard, and none of us emerged from the experience unscathed—or undelighted.

By the time we were done, we and the other volunteers crowded around our long work table had filled over 60,000 vials with beautiful roses. 

We also had a brief stint cutting the tops off daisy-like chrysanthemums and daintily applying tacky glue in a circle around the underside of the petals.  Thousands of those white flower heads we prepared were applied to the huge helmet on the Wisconsin team float.

The roses were destined for the five floats in our warehouse—the Wisconsin and Oregon team floats,

 the lead float for the parade,

a huge dragon sponsored by China Airlines, and a Power Rangers float.  

During breaks in our flower processing action, we had time to wander around the warehouse and watch the volunteers decorating floats.  Those of us who had a hard time putting tinsel on the Christmas tree one strand at a time could never qualify to do float decorating work, which often involves tasks like gluing tiny leaves one at a time in a complex pattern, or outlining the entire perimeter of a 50 foot float with a single line of black beans.  We watched one woman using a curling iron on corn husks, curling them one at a time.  It was a seemingly endless task, since it appeared that over a thousand would be needed to cover the long neck of the dragon.

One woman who has been volunteering at this warehouse for 23 years showed us how she pulverizes straw flowers and statice in a blender to make flakes of yellow and blue colors respectively.  She was using burgundy cranberry seeds and tan raspberry seeds on medallions she was preparing, and she showed us multiple variations on black—shiny black seaweed, matte black onion seeds, peppercorns.  Surprisingly, the warehouse was not fragrant with the aroma of roses, but instead it smelled like coconut, which was used in flakes and ground fine in abundance.  

One of our favorite surprises during our time there was the arrival of a team of Power Rangers, who practiced their very impressive choreographed kicking and flipping ninja moves in front of their float and did features with local news anchors.  The music blaring from their float during a very long sound system check and optimization was very energizing and fun after a long day of poking flowers into tubes.

What a grand and wondrous adventure!

But the day was not over . . . after dinner a group of riders from the Southern California Peruvian Paso Horse Club came to talk to us and show us their traditional handmade tack, including this exquisite hand-tooled saddle. 

According to our speakers, the Peruvian Paso Horse has three legs on the ground at all times, resulting in such a smooth gait that when the rider is viewed from the shoulders up, he or she appears to glide on an even plane, with no bouncing up and down involved.  One of our presenters has had multiple back surgeries, and claims the hardest part of the ride is getting into and out of the saddle—otherwise he can, and does, ride for hours in total comfort.  This sounds like my kind of horse.  I will be watching carefully at the parade to see if the evidence bears out their claims.

And, of course, we will be watching for the five special floats that bear our roses—hope you will be watching for them too!

We Do One for the Gipper

December 29,  2011

Today’s big event was our visit to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, an awesome 100,000 square foot temple where the Party faithful come to worship the Great Communicator (known in prior incarnations as the great Gipper and the Great Governor).  The library’s lofty site—100 mountaintop acres with spectacular panoramic views--represents the “shining city on the hill” that the President so often invoked. 

Our President’s temple has many rooms – 24 to be exact – and each gallery has a burnished golden tablet expressing gratitude and praising the works of the wealthy and influential friends whose generous contributions made this flashy place possible. Boone Pickens funded the world’s most beautiful airplane hangar and relocated Irish Pub, where Airforce One is now parked and accepting visitors.  Merv Griffen funded the reproduction of the White House Rose Garden out back.  

We hardly know what to say about the place.  We were struck by how much the country’s travails at the start of his presidency paralleled our current state of affairs – an economy in the dumps, people disillusioned with government, troubles in the middle east.   The story according to Reagan is that he solved all these problems, plus single-handedly conquered Communism and made the world safe for democracy.  Boy, could we use another dose of Reagan now!  

Some of our favorite parts of the visit:  a very good lunch out on the terrace overlooking rolling rural hillsides dotted with orchards, and the ocean in the distance; a portrait of Reagan made from 10,000 jelly beans (very much out of keeping with the decorum of the rest of the museum); a walk through Air Force One;  an exhibit of some of the extremely ornate belt buckles the President was given as gifts (he got 372 in total);  

a case full of 3x5 cards covered with aphorisms, adages , and anecdotes that Reagan wrote in very tiny writing and filed away for future reference (his writing was so tiny we couldn’t read much, but the sheer volume was impressive).  Standing behind the presidential podium looking at the teleprompters, Reagan's optimism must have really inspired Dick, because he had a very strange visiion that if only he had Reagan's hairline he could have been President!

More than any other presidential library we have visited, this one portrayed everything about the President, from his boyhood to his passing, in the most highly positive light.  It isn’t hard to see why people like President Reagan—he was a nice handsome person with a positive and upbeat demeanor, a great sense of humor and a big friendly smile.  And, a lot of things did get better during his administration, although perhaps not solely due to his efforts.  

In these troubling political times, when the Republican Party is struggling to find a viable--if not likeable--candidate for President, Reagan is very much on the minds of our populace.  When we arrived half an hour after the museum opened the parking lot was 90% full, and when we left mid-afternoon visitors’ parked cars lined both sides of the street for over a mile down the hill leading to the museum.  Many were the pilgrims visiting the shrine to Reagan this holiday season.  

California Dreaming Is Becoming A Reality

January 29
Los Angeles and Woodland Hills
We are on our way to experience the Tournament of Roses Parade live and in living color, broadly and deeply, behind the scenes and in the bleachers.  But first, we will add an installment to our Presidential Library tour sequel with a stop at the Ronald Reagan Library.  Then, after all the Parade festivities are over, we will drive up the coast for another week of California adventures.
 
Our flights from Savannah to LAX were unremarkable, save for the dramatic contrast between our quiet, sleepy, empty intimate-sized airport and the crowded confusing hectic impersonal urban transport jungles of Atlanta and Los Angeles.    

As if to emphasize the point that Los Angeles is operating in a different universe from  sweet Savannah, we spotted this building straight out of "The Jetsons" as our shuttle drove us toward the rental car outpost.  (Amazing that I got this picture through the tinted window of the shuttle while it was moving, eh?) We almost expected to see George Jetson land his hovercraft on the roof.   

A little online research revealed that this place, known as the “Theme Building,” was completed in 1961 as part of a Los Angeles Jet Age Terminal Project, and is now designated a City Cultural and Historical Monument.  Those 135 foot high parabolic arches supporting the structure were a big design first in their day.  The building houses a restaurant now.   

On the way to our hotel in Woodland Hills, we passed another notable example of curvilinear architecture that caught our eye, due to the 32 foot diameter donut on its roof.  (The photo is from Randy's website--I couldn't snap it from the rapidly moving car.)  This architectural gem dates back to 1953 .  We were so intent on getting to our hotel after hours on the plane that we didn’t even exit the freeway to sample a donut.  That is just so unlike us! 

Chalk it up to freeway madness.  I know I got my share of cardio fitness today through all my heart palpitations experienced as Dick masterfully drove and dodged in the densely packed quickly moving herds of cars dashing home during rush hour.  The need to concentrate was so intense that we could not adequately ogle the many expensive cars zooming about us—a couple Ferraris, assorted Porsches, lots of big black Cadillac Escalades, and so on.  

Nonetheless, we made it to our hotel, got the car parked safely, were assigned a fabulous room with a panoramic view of the mountains, and were off to dinner without incident.  

Our notable discovery of the evening was that there must be some law here requiring restaurants with fixed menus to divulge the calorie content of their offerings.  This information is very disconcerting.  After seeing how many calories were in stuff I would normally order, I navigated to the less exciting (and very small) section of the menu featuring meals under 600 calories.  We came here to learn about the Rose Parade, and I fear I may get some unwanted nutrition lessons in the bargain.

Happy Thanksgiving From the Grove Park Inn

November 24, 2011
Finding ourselves too stuffed and tired to tell many tales, we will let our pictures carry the day.

The Grove Park Inn was built in 1913, and its distinctive exterior features huge granite boulders dragged from nearby quarries. 

We spent a lot of time eating today--first at the spectacular breakfast buffet, then just a few hours later at the tremendous Thanksgiving Feast buffet.  Note that the flowers in this arrangement are all carved from fruits and vegetables, just one example of the artistry applied to creating a buffet that looked as appetizing as it tasted.

Here we are before sitting down to our Thanksgiving dinner.  Someone told us that the dining room where we had our dinner served 3,000 meals today.  We knew the place was hopping, but we had a very leisurely meal, with lots of trips to sample from the many the buffet stations and plenty of attentive service, and never a hint of being encouraged to move along to vacate our table for waiting diners.  Edwin Grove would be proud that, in the tradition of his famous tonic (see yesterday's post), the buffet at his famous Inn successfully "made children and adults feel as fat as pigs."

We took advantage of the indoor tennis courts to work off a few calories.  (The boys also burned off some calories swimming this afternoon, but we didn't get pictures, because we were napping.)

There are hundreds of entries from the inn's annual gingerbread house competition spread throughout the hotel. Here is the grand prize winner.

We have a bounty of blessings to be thankful for this Thanksgiving!

Celebrating the Groves Legacy with the Glovers

November 23, 2010
Grove Park Inn, Asheville, NC
Could there be a more appropriate place to spend Thanksgiving than a resort built from the profits of a product formulated to make you fat?

We are at the Grove Park Inn, built by Edwin Grove in 1912, using a fortune acquired from the sales of his famous Tasteless Chill Tonic (which outsold Coca Cola in the 1890s), and other miraculous medical concoctions. We are spending the long Thanksgiving weekend here with our Indiana Glover grandchildren and their parents.

The Inn is decorated for Christmas and filled with fanciful elaborate gingerbread scenes from its annual competition (stay tuned for pictures another day).  There is a roaring fire and non-stop musical entertainment in the Great Hall. We joined  a small crowd gathered on the deck with their wine or hot chocolate to watch the sun setting behind the Blue Ridge Mountains in grandeur.  We have gone with the boys to check out the tennis courts and the indoor pool which we will visit tomorrow to work off a small fraction of the calories we consume at the breakfast and Thanksgiving Dinner buffets.

Let the Thanksgiving festivities begin--we are thankful to be sharing the holiday with family from afar!

Sunshine Makes Everything Better

FestiVELO Day 3

November 5, 2011

The temperature was no warmer today than yesterday and the winds were stronger, but the sun shone bright and the ride was scenic, which made a world of difference.  Bike Club friends Lucille and Arte rode thirty miles with us today, while other Bike Club members did longer rides.   

Our first destination was Cypress Gardens, where the butterfly pavilion-- heated to a tropical temperature and filled with colorful flowers, birds, and butterflies—was the most popular attraction for our cold and windswept riders.  

Then it was on to lunch in the Old Santee Canal Park, on the site of America’s first canal, which began operating in 1800.  Jimmy Buffet songs blaring from the sound system in our picnic shelter inspired us to think of tropical locales, and our lunch menu was inspired by his song “Cheeseburger in Paradise.”  

We didn’t have time to stop in the Museum or Interpretive Center, but took a moment to learn about this interesting vessel.  It is a full size model of “Little David,” a semisubmersible torpedo boat built in Charleston in 1863 which earned fame during the Civil War as the first submarine to make a successful torpedo attack on a warship. 

We rode from the rest stop back to our starting point, changed from our bike gear into warm dry clothes, then headed by car to the next stop on the 70-100 mile rides—Mepkin Abbey. The Abbey has been home to a colony of Trappist monks since 1949, but the property dates back to 1681, when it was a 3,000 acre land grant plantation.  The plantation grew to 10,000 acres in the early 1900s, and was purchased in 1936 by Henry R. Luce--publisher  of Time, Fortune and Life magazines, and his wife Clare Boothe Luce—playwright, author, congresswoman and ambassador.  Clare found religion and joined the Roman Catholic Church after her daughter died in a car accident in 1944, and she donated most of the plantation property to the Catholic Church for the use of the monks in 1949.  

We visited the Abbey gift shop and wandered the tranquil garden and grounds, but did not see any monks out and about.  The woman at the shop told us that this time of day was when they were in their rooms meditating or taking naps, since they get up at 3 a.m..  

This is a sculpture that the monks made using wood from trees downed here by Hurricane Hugo in 1989.  The hurricane was devastating to the area, downing 12,000 trees in Cypress Gardens as well.  We never missed the extra trees at either the Abbey or Cypress Gardens—the monks could probably find in that a meditation on time’s power to heal, or resilience (or maybe they would just shake their heads and tell us that we are not very observant).  

From the Abbey we headed south to Charleston, where we stayed overnight in an unremarkable Best Western Inn near the starting point of our Sunday ride—a bike tour of Charleston’s historic district.