It’s a Doo Dah day

November 19, 2014 by RMW 15 Comments

Everybody is familiar with the Rose Parade. Gazillions of people line the streets of Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena every New Year’s Day to watch the elaborate and expensive floats go by. More gazillions all over the world watch the parade on TV from the comfort of their sofas. There aren’t too many people who don’t know about it.

The opposite is true of the parade’s ugly sister, the Doo Dah Parade. And that is just fine.

Thirty seven years ago a chap named Peter Apanel  had a brain storm to start a parade that would be the anti-Rose Parade. The Rose Parade had “a theme so we would have no theme. They have judging and prizes, so we would have no judging and no prizes. Since none of us would be allowed in the Rose Parade, we would allow everyone in our parade.”

And so the Doo Dah Parade was born.

When I first heard about it several years ago it became one of those things I wanted to see sometime in the future when I had the time. That time finally came.

This year the parade was held on November 15 and I decided to go.

Pasadena is 20 miles, 2 freeways and 45 minutes (depending on the date and time) from Culver City. But now I can get there by Metro train: Expo Line to the Red Line to the Gold Line.

I met some friends at Union Station and we all hopped on the Gold Line together to ride to the end of the line at Sierra Madre Villa station. (It won’t be the end of the line for long as it is being expanded out to Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Irwindale and Azusa in the first phase and further out later on.)

Then we walked about a mile to what happened to be the turn around point for the parade, and a good location for taking photos.

That was my first and last Doo Dah Parade. I enjoyed seeing what it was all about and now I can strike another event off my list.

It’s just a bit of fun and I’m sure the people who enter it are having a super time.

For more photos than you ever wanted to see of the Doo Dah Parade click an image below:

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