In the dark of an October night, a certain kind of rose parade slowly made its way to Pasadena, but without the roses, the performers, stages or crowds.
A caravan of six floats, set to be in the actual extravaganza come Jan. 1, started in Azusa and made its way west to the Rosemont Pavilion at a blistering 4 miles per hour.
The floats — built by Artistic Entertainment Services — gradually brought to life with their larger-than-life characters — silently transformed local surface streets as the “parade before the parade” started at 8 p.m. on Thursday night.
Related: Where do all those Rose Parade roses come from? Turns out, it’s far from California
They basked in the evening street lights of foothill cities on the way to Pasadena, almost happily towed. They included floats from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, The UPS Store, One Legacy, City of Torrance, Explore Louisiana, and Kindness is Free, powered by Boys & Girls Clubs of West San Gabriel Valley & Eastside.
The roughly six-hour trek also included a porta-potty in the back of a pick-up truck.
Ultimately, it wasn’t exactly a parade, as there were no crowds gazing at the intricately designed but flower-baren floats. However, passersby saw giant sea turtles, a pterodactyl falling off a tree, and even a king crocodile with a house built on top of it.
Of course, the people driving the floats also had quite the journey.
Nick Simolke has been a float driver for 11 years. He said this job is “one of the most demanding” because it is really time consuming.
Simolke had to drive blind at 4 miles per hour on bumpy roads for around four hours.
On Thursday night, Simolke drove the “Helping Dreams Take Flight” float with Pterodactyls in a big natural scenery. He said that this was “probably the heaviest float” he has ever driven, towering at a height of 60 feet. Inside a volcano on the float was his cockpit, where he sat on an uncomfortable seat with a headset on.
The insides of the volcano did not generate magma. Instead, it had a large steering-wheel, two uncomfortable seats, a submarine-esque dashboard with an assortment of switches, lights and meters, two pairs of pedals for each seat and levers to the side of the driver that act like gear-shifts. Every float’s driving cockpit is different, Simolke explained, but they tend to follow a similar format that is easy to adapt to for him.
The City of Torrance float, at right, on Friday, Oct. 18, 2024. Artistic Entertainment Services (AES) drove the first convoy of its 2025 Rose Parade® Presented by Honda Floats from Azusa to Pasadena for staging and decoration at the Rosemont Pavilion. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
What the cockpit lacked was front vision, as the volcano is part of the float’s design. Instead, Simolke and other float drivers rely on their observers outside that tell them through their headphones when they need to turn.
After a grueling two-hours of the drive, the floats took a break at the halfway point in their trip , at the intersection between Huntington Drive and Rosemead Boulevard. There, Simolke got to stretch his back.
“The seats are a little uncomfortable; I have to get some cushions for them,” he said. “It’s a little cramped in there, I have to make room before the parade but it handles really well.”
“I noticed that we did get up to about nine miles an hour at one point, but we’ve been consistently around four mph,” Simolke added.
It was slow going.
But eventually, the six floats arrived at the Rosemont Pavilion later that night ready to be decorated by volunteers for the upcoming Rose Parade this New Year’s Day. It’s theme for 2025? “Best Day Ever.”
Related links
Hint: The 2025 Rose Parade grand marshal will be an ‘icon of sports and equality’
Picking a Rose Parade grand marshal is years in the making. Here’s why
Rose Parade 2025: Grand marshals through the decades
Fiesta Parade Floats, award-winning Rose Parade float builder, ceases operation
Adam Young is a freelancer for the Southern California News Group.