Story by Richard Carroll. Photography by Halina Kubalski
A large brown building adjacent to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena California, two days before the famed 137 Rose Parade, themed “The Magic in Teamwork” with Grand Marshall, former Laker basketball player, Magic Johnson, leading the way, hosts an incredible scene of controlled chaos. Massive floats: Honda, Princess Cruises and the States of Mississippi and Louisianna, are covered amidst scaffolding and ladders, with tables of flowers and tools, while a fusion of workers, volunteers, and artists are focusing on finishing details. Narrow, slippery passage ways are filled with hustling workers, as the bouquet of flowers and plants tickle the nose.
The scene is a tug at the heart, the art work created with flowers, seeds, barks and natural foliage are museum quality, and seems as if it should be preserved for ever. A mother and son in a wheelchair, decorating the Princess Cruise float, who at that moment had been working on the float for eight straight hours, the mother, stopped for a moment, looked up and smiled, this is my 36th experience here, while numerous others said this was their seventh or eighth float challenge, and not necessarily a social gathering but smiles and hugs at the end of the day. The Princess Cruise float depicts the newest ship in their fleet, the Star Princess, which had its maiden voyage, in October 2025, departing from Barcelona. The artists and volunteers have created a float with 300,000 flowers, and somehow have artistically depicted an Inside Passage journey with towering glaciers, eagles, whales, bears with eyes that stare back at you in wonderment, and waves that seem wet to the touch. Then you realize underneath all this finery is a motor vehicle to move 42, artistically decorated floats more than five miles down Colorado Boulevard. As one volunteer said, “Viva 2026!”
