2020 Tournament of Roses Rose Parade float decorating. Dinner at Peppertree Cafe (Glendora).

mmm-yoso!! is primarily a food blog.  There are many reasons food is acquired.  Cathy is posting today about another year end event when she and The Mister volunteer, along with their meal following the long work day. Kirk and His Missus are still 'on vacation'.

In January, the New President of the Tournament of Roses was announced and she announced the theme of the 2020 Rose Parade. (Details at the top of this post, along with links to all 2020 float road tests). This Saturday was the first day of float decorating. Check in kiosks, light rain and an excitement surrounded the Phoenix Decorating Company decorating barn in Irwindale. Soon enough, we were called in and met our Crew Chief who escorted us to the float where we would be working on this first of the 'dry' decorating days. Live flowers show up around December 26 or 27, so they will be fresh on the floats.  These Saturdays before Christmas are decorations made with glue and tiny details of dry materials: peas, beans, lentils, coffee grounds, straw, dry flowers, dry parsley and so much more. 
Walking past numerous floats
and material product (these are statice flowers, which are cut, dried and blended into a powder to be spread on floats needing large areas of blue or pink colors).
Colors are painted for easy material application. ('Soaring with Hope' presented by Kiwanis International).
Here's part of a thatch roof effect, almost finished before lunch. ('Growing a Better Tomorrow' by Western Asset).
Glue and onion seed being applied. ('Planting Seeds of Hope' by Sikh American Float Foundation). 
 Rotary ('Hope Connects the World') had a lot of volunteers this first day.
 Shriner's Hospitals for Children ('Hope Knows No Limits') completed quite a bit.
These ladies, first time volunteers, were applying bended straw flowers to one of the homes on the SCAN Foundation float, 'Hope's Hope'.
The Lions Club float ('Hope for 2020')really has so many cute details all related to vision, one of their five tenants. 
 Part of the SCAN Foundation float had coffee grounds (on the frame of the window), sesame seeds (the yellow 'bricks') and poppy seeds (the darker half circle castle pieces).  Across the way is the Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day float, 'Plant a garden, Believe in Tomorrow'.There's the Cowboy Channel float, 'Walk, Ride, Rodeo'.
Here's Trader Joe on 'It Takes a Flight of Fancy'.  He's in a pickle barrel and holding a pickle in his left hand.  Two floats are still under construction- Wescom Credit Union and Farmers Insurance. There's plenty of time(!)

Details, dry materials, glue: what a day.

Details for volunteering and artist renditions of some of the floats are on the Phoenix Decorating page.  Details of Tournament activities are on The Rose Examiner page and more other Tournament activity details on the Tournament of Roses  page. 

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We stopped at Cream Pan for a quick breakfast on the way up, brought our own lunch for our 30 minute break and decided to head East, to Glendora, for dinner once we finished working. I posted about a breakfast here in 2018   There is a regular menu as well as a Special Menu on weekends. 

Italian Wedding Soup-very good long simmered chicken broth along with the spinach and carrots, tiny beef-pork meatballs and tiny orzo pasta.
The house made thousand Island is excellent.  A refreshing salad.
 An eight ounce Top Sirloin along with five coconut shrimp and choice of potato or fresh vegetables (sautéed in garlic butter) ($13.99) Look at all those vegetables!  The Top Sirloin was cooked to a perfect medium rare and had great flavor, the crispy coconut shrimp were so nice; plump, juicy and crispy.
Prime Rib ($15.99) was great- medium rare, large and flavorful,  and the salted baked potato made this special meal after a long day just a bit more special.  

We had really liked the breakfast here...dinner was also excellent.  

Peppertree Cafe 1020 E. Route 66 Glendora, CA 91740 Website Sun-Thurs 6 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri-Sat 6a.m.-10 p.m.

 

Comments

[kat]

I was wondering what happens after the parade, are parts recycled? what about the flowers?

[Cathy]

There are a lot of stored items, Kat (look at my Instagram for today)-and the engines and seats for drivers and spotters are definitely re-used (for the most part, the rebar supporting structures/bases have to be rebuilt each year). The floats aren't cleaned off for a couple of weeks (they start working on float designs and building once the theme and President are announced in late January and everyone is on vacation after about January 3, so most materials are dead, covered with glue and moldy). I do know that the Sikhs took the whole vegetables they had as part of their Langar float (2018) to one of the local temples to be used for meals. {There is 1/3 of an episode of a 2006 episode of 'Dirty Jobs' about cleaning Rose Parade floats (I think YouTube has it); it is quite interesting}.

[caninecologne]

The floats are coming along! Lots of work to be done in December! Thank you always for sharing your experiences and your meals on the road.

[Soo]

Thanks for helping make the lovely floats!

[Cathy]

Only the first of three 'dry' decorating days then the fresh flowers are delivered beginning December 26, cc. We were contemplating dinner at a number of places and realized we had never experienced Peppertree for dinner...the line at The Donut Man across the street was crazy long and we wanted to be home more than we wanted a dessert.
It's always fun, Soo. The parade is an American tradition and we are taking advantage of being able to volunteer since we live here.