On January 2, 2023, the city of Pasadena started off the new year with its annual New Year’s parade followed by a football game. This world-famous event is famously known as the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game.  Once again, the weather cooperated this year and the Rose Parade was complete in dry weather between winter storms in Southern California.

Usually, the Rose Parade is on January 1, but this year, January 1 landed on a Sunday, so they postponed the parade to the following Monday due to the fact that Sundays are usually days off for the city. Some people get ready days before the parade to save their seats, while others camp on the streets the day and night before the parade.

The Rose Parade usually starts off at 8 A.M. with a fly-by of the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, but this year a B-1B Lancer bomber did the fly-by. Some people were disappointed by this for two reasons: some didn’t see the fly-by and some wanted to see the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit. Once the plane flew by, the floats and bands began their parade route.

At the beginning of the parade, the Pasadena city police forces showed off their motorcycle skills, followed by the first marching band and float.

The crowd was very excited and began to cheer. There were marching bands from many different states and countries, and not only were there floats and bands but there were also horses and cars. Since the Rose Parade is always presented by Honda, they typically present their new cars of the year.

Twenty-three floats were decorated with millions of flowers and hundreds of volunteers contributed to creating the beautiful floats.

Thousands of hours were put in by the volunteers for the parade altogether.

The parade lasts about two hours in total. After the parade, people move down to the Rose Bowl for the annual new year’s football game. This year, Penn State and Utah played in the game with Penn State prevailing 35-21. The game concludes on the day of the Rose Parade.