January 1, 2011 Colorado Street at 2 AM…

I awoke about 1:15 am and joined Carlos, Jim, and Vicki for the four-block walk to Colorado Street.  Our chair shift was cold but calm.  It was now well after midnight and most of the celebrants had settled down and there were few cars on the street.    After four we walked back to camp and took a short nap, then got up for a hot breakfast and coffee with our campmates.  Marcia and I got back to Colorado Street about 9 AM, missing 15 minutes of the parade.  A good time, but likely my last Rose Parade in person.  Thanks to Judy and Ken, Jack and Kathy, and Margaret, for the great rally.

December 31, 2010 – New Year Eve is crazy in Pasadena…

Sierra Madre is one of the few that decorates with volunteers.

Carlos, Jim, Vickie, and Frank

George and Claudette

Marcia and Rosemary on chair watch.

Rosemary, Kathy and Marcia making the best of an afternoon of chair watching.

Alan, Diana, and Margaret.

New Years Eve got off to a slow start – it was cold, and although Marcia had traded her chair-guarding shift with Carlos (definitely a Texas gentleman), I still had to face a 2-4 AM shift on Colorado Blvd with 37 degrees predicted.  After a group dinner, we drank casually and clustered around propane heaters, talking and listening to Ken’s mix of 1950s-1970s music, waiting for midnight.

Margaret felt this wasn’t enough and ordered everyone to line up at her motorhome, where she would dispense something she called “chocolate cake”, one person at a time.  You don’t say “no” to Margaret without penalty, but I sat back and watched.  A dozen people fell in line and entered her motorhome one at a time, exiting apparently satisfied.  To me, it looked like a mobile methadone clinic.  I fell in line, and when my turn came sucked on the offered sugar-dipped lemon slice and downed a shot of Frangelico.   It tasted a little bit like chocolate cake.  She said I didn’t do it right and made me repeat the process.  I then said it tasted a lot like chocolate cake, and went back outside, happy, as I like chocolate cake.

With that assist the party warmed up and pretty soon there was dancing and a proper New Years Eve.  I’ve never seen an Airstream group that celebratory.  By 12:30 I was in bed.

December 28, 1010 We join the WBCCI Rose Parade Rally - Pasadena

Old playground of my kindergarden school, with my junior high (McKinley) in the background.

It was, I thought, cold as we pulled into the rally point behind the building I knew as McKinley Elementary School in Pasadena. But there was Carlos from Texas, in shorts. So I changed to shorts.

Over the next couple days others arrived until we totaled at least 22 Airstreams from around the US and Canada, camped on my kindergarden playground. I had not been on this spot in probably 64 years. WBCCI Region 12 rally hosts Ken and Judy, with help from Jack and Kathy and many others, greeted and put on a fine four-day rally, focused on Pasadena and the New Year's Rose Parade.

For starters, in an occasional drizzle, Marcia and I led Carlos and Rosemary on a tour of Pasadena, coincidentally sharing many of my old haunt. Carlos promised to do the same to me when we reach Houston on our way to Florida.

We were dry camping here (no electricity or water beyond our batteries and onboard tanks) and it is cold.  My catalytic heater doesn't use electricity so I fired it up, one of the few times we've used it.  It helps but soon the carbon monoxide detector went off even though I had cracked open two windows.  I turned off the catalytic heater and we went to bed for a rather restless night.

On the second night, I again turned on the catalytic heater and opened three windows a bit, wondering at what point this would net to no practical heat.  To be safe I turned off the heater at bedtime and because I had been sleeping poorly popped an Ambien falling quickly to sleep.  The next day Marcia told me the alarm had gone off again and she couldn't wake me up to do something about it.  She eventually silenced the alarm herself and returned to sleep with me none the wiser.

December 27, 2010 We are off! - heading South to Pasadena

December 27, 2010

We left Roseville 27 December 2010 in cold weather actually looking forward to Florida for some warmth - it seems the California dream is fading in more ways than one. But unfortunately the weather reports show Florida - and virtually the entire country - experiencing unseasonably cold temperatures.

That afternoon we pulled our truck and Airstream into a familiar space - the street across from Rowley and Jenna's home in Stevenson Ranch, near Santa Clarita. The evening was spent comfortably indoors with friends, great food and wine, and cards - as Marcia introduced Jenna to Nepali Cards, which we had recently learned from Freeman.