Day #1 – Thursday – December 28
Before the sun sent streaks of dawn into the eastern sky, Ioway
Petal Pushers were up preparing to head to the Des Moines airport, ready for
their adventure to begin. We were
greeted by very cold temperatures and by snow squalls and slippery roads,
making it even more desirable to get to Pasadena where we understand it is much
warmer. And of course, there is the
excitement of being able to decorate floats for the famous Rose Parade.
The Petal Pusher sweatshirts were backordered so they were
distributed at the airport and we then became a team all looking alike. With 29 people dressed in these colorful
sweatshirts, you create quit a stir wherever you go. Such was the case today as we moved through
airports. Many people took note and
asked what we were doing opening up witness opportunities. It was easy to engage people in conversation.
One such encounter happened in the Des Moines airport while
we were waiting to board our plane for Dallas, the first stop of our journey to
warmer climes. I sat beside a young lady
and found out she was flying first class so I tried to get her to trade tickets
with me. This got me nowhere but it made
her smile at least. Then I heard my name
announced and low and behold, I was selected to get an upgrade to first class
as well. I gladly accepted! Then the pressure was on so I gave up my
newly acquired first class seat to Ellie.
What a guy, huh? What else can a
guy do with more than twenty of my closest Ioway friends look on?
So back to bargaining with the young lady sitting beside me
in the waiting room. She still wouldn’t
budge but I got more smiles out of her anyway.
Being able to sit in the back of the plane right beside the toilets
wasn’t even appealing to her. She didn’t
know what she was missing. We arrived in
Dallas and it took me twelve minutes to get out of the plane once it
stopped. She could have spent that much
longer on the plane had she traded tickets with me but she missed out.
Once in Dallas, we rode the Skylink train to another
terminal to a slightly larger plane and back into the wild blue yonder we
went. By now the sun had set but we got
high enough to see it once again. Flying
west kept the sun in view for some time.
After a three-hour flight we dropped down onto the runway with a bump
and discovered we were in Ontario! I
know what some of you are thinking. You
think Ellie, and in her fifteenth year of leading the trip, routed us to Canada.
All was not lost. We
were indeed in Ontario but it was Ontario, California, a smaller airport than
LAX and closer to where we are staying and working. This is a year of firsts. The buildings where the floats are
constructed had gotten too expensive to rent and the Tournament of Roses
decided to use buildings ten miles east of Pasadena instead. The building where we are working will be new
to us and we are staying in a different hotel too.
In our day of training in early December, Ellie told
everyone to expect plan B and C. Already
tonight we hit plan C because the buffet where we were to eat closed before we
got there. So, plan B was that we ate at
In-N-Out Burger, which was a little chaotic, but we were hungry and made
due. We got to plan C when our shuttle
couldn’t hold our luggage and it had to put in the aisle so nobody could move
until it was all unloaded at the hotel which is why we missed our appointed
restaurant.
It’s late. The Ioway
team is sleeping I’m sure. In the
morning it is breakfast at 6 and on the shuttle to head for decorating before
7. It will be a short night.
Lynn Menz - One tired Petal Pusher signing off.
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