Stanley Visits Fiesta Parade Floats

Miss Laurie, Flat Stanley and I had a unique day today. We visited an old friend by the name of Tim Estes at his shop in Pasadena, California.  Now people say we have a fun job, but Tim’s ranks right up there with ours...

Here is a picture of Tim with Miss Laurie and Stanley... (he just broke his wrist, looks like it hurts)... As you can see, he’s just a little guy... 

On New Years morning, we all get up and turn on the TV to watch the worlds most famous parade, the “Tournament of Roses” from Pasadena. Its kind of a tradition at our house and I bet you do it too. Well all those incredible floats you see on TV come from Tim’s company, “Fiesta Parade Floats”.  They build around 13 every year and today, we got a chance to look around and see how and where they are made. Flat Stanley got a chance to climb around on some of last years floats...  

Tim’s shop is really cool. When you arrive, you see all these old floats sitting out in a big yard, waiting to be recycled for next years parade.

In the picture above, you can see parts of three gigantic floats. Do you see the “Liberty Bell” ?  It was on a float that the National Guard sponsored last year. Now here is the special part ... even though that bell looks like its made from metal ... it isn’t. 

Is made from flowers and seeds! 

Same thing with the camera and flag you see on the right side of the picture. How cool is that boys and girls? 

TV just doesn’t do these floats any justice. Each float is completely covered with flowers, seeds or vegetables, period.

Of the 13 floats that Fiesta makes each year, once the float structure is complete, it takes volunteers 7,000 hours of labor, per float, to glue, insert or attach the flowers that cover every inch of the floats. 

Here is some thing that is pretty neat, and illustrates exactly how detailed these floats are.

The picture below, is a palm tree that Tim’s staff fabricated.

The next picture shows the trunk of the palm tree. Do you know what it is made from?

If you said “Corn Husk”, you are right!

I know its hard to tell in this photo, but this car is actually almost 4 times bigger than a regular car. If you look closely, you can see above the door, seats where the people who rode on this float sat during the parade. 

This float, the car, the frame it is built on and the “chassis” of the float, weigh 35,000 lbs.

The picture above, is a close up of Stanley sitting on that car. The green area, with the white spots on his left, is where vials with roses are inserted. You know how big Stanley is, look how many roses go in just the area next to him. Imagine how many it takes to cover the entire car!

And boy, you talk about a company that operates on imagination... check out some of these other “Float props” that we saw in Tim’s shop today...

These beautiful horses were made with “navy beans”!

Lady Liberty’s Torch and a Wood Pecker actually pecking on a real “Red wood”

I always wondered where the driver sat?  Flat Stanley found out. Buried deep inside the working float, a driver sits in a not so very comfortable seat, and is told by a spotter, when to turn, when to break, when to go forward, etc...

We found our visit to “Fiesta Parade Floats” to be a pretty exciting way to learn about something that not many of us ever get to see. You guys would have loved it!