Arlene Buchmann and the La Cañada-Flintridge volunteers put the finishing touches on their entry in the 2013 Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena.  This is part 2 of Arlene’s photo diary.

The parade approaches, and there’s still a lot of work to do to get our float ready.  During Deco week we move under the bridge and set up scaffolding.  I love the way they painted his neck and tail!

 

Neoprene was used as the donosaur’s “skin.”  We covered the neoprene seam so it wouldn’t be seen.

 

I spent some time Deco’ing the neck…

 

The beige stripe on the Dino’s neck was made of quinoa.  When the Head Decorators chose quinoa, all the girls said “oh cool, great!” and the guys said “huh?”

 

Hundreds of workers helped Deco between Christmas and New Year’s.  The dry things (for example, poppy seeds, cinnamon, corn meal, and the quinoa) were the first to be applied.

 

On December 28^th all the flowers arrived.  We ended up using 13,000 roses, 11,000 carnations and 300 dendrobium orchids, among other things.

 

Remember all the leaves?  They were all ready to be deco’d.

 

A Deco week change was the Dino’s belly – originally scheduled to be covered with decorative leaves, it was changed to crushed split peas instead.  So, with all those leftovers, they decided to cover my leaves with… leaves!

My friends Ed and Lisset came to Deco, and we had them work on one of my “flowers”.  (Thanks, guys!)

 

Here I am adding carnation “lava” to the volcano.  We poke a hole in the screening and glue a carnation in.  (And no, I don’t always look like a homeless person.  Only during Deco Week.   )

 

Here’s a shot of the inside of the Dino’s belly, where all the hydraulics are located.

 

Because workers were climbing on scaffolding doing Deco till 1am every night, we did the animation test at 4am.  Look, here’s proof!

 

I was also asked to place the orchids into the palm trees.  Since I am not wildly fond of heights, I was proud of myself for going up so high.  (Not pictured:  shots of me crawling along the scaffolding and clinging to the tree when I stand up!)

 

Finally, our Dino was ready for final judging.

 

And here he is during the Parade…

 

Here are some videos of the float on parade.  Coming up to TV Corner:

 

On the Parade route. Eagle Scouts carry the winning banners in the parade. Our banner was carried by a set of triplets, one of whom (Adam, closest to the camera) also does Construction on our Float! That was very meaningful to us.

And for more fun here’s a video Arlene put together of the Convoy, the journey floats make in the dark of night…

Thanks again to Arlene for allowing us to share these great photos!