Well, you guys have all changed my mind about never driving again. We originally were going to fly, but could only get return tickets Monday afternoon. We had to be back Monday morning, we cancelled and drove. I thought the drive was horrible. we left on Wednesday to spend a couple of lays in Laguna Beach. Took 13 hours. hour delay at the bridge construciton just east of Mesquite, another hour bumper to bumper at Primm (never was able to here what caused that delay, but coming back on Sund;ay it lloked even longer for those heading to Cali) and 11/12 to 2 hours going through the San Gabriel Mtns in the rain b/c of a traffic accident.
We vowed we would never drive again, but maybe we will next year. Our trip was nothing compared to yours.
I fell guilty that I don’t have a terrible story to relate. Drove to St. George on Thursday and to Pasadena on Friday. We did leave St. George really early to avoid the traffic at Beaver Dam. Stayed in Arcadia, had a great breakfast in Monrovia (we actually went to several Monrovia restaurants) scouted out our route to the Parade and did some memorabilia shopping. Hopped on the Gold Line and headed to the Parade and enjoyed that 100X more than I thought I would. Walked down to the Stadium. Longest line was getting the vaccine wrist band. Found our seats. Visited with LAUte and Stegys on the row behind us. Put up with boorish Ute fans who spilled their drinks on the woman next to us several times and one gal who was way over the top. Drove back to St. George on Sunday and to Park City on Monday. We were stuck at Beaver Dam for about an hour, but lived through it.
I want to hear more from those that went to the parade. Was it worth it? Was it ok getting to the game? Anything you learned you would do differently? On TV, they commented on Utah fan’s presence several times - I don’t remember them ever saying much about the teams or the fans in prior years (other than the bands).
The parade is as much on my bucket list as the game. Grew up with it as must see TV and love the plant based floats. Typically I think parades are stupid, but the Macy’s parade and Rose Bowl parade seem ok to do once.
Did similar. Drove to St. George before the snow on Thursday night, into Burbank on Friday. Stayed an extra day in Newport and drove back yesterday. No delays at Cajon or Littlefield on the way back, made it from Newport beach to Cottonwood Heights in just over 10 hours with terrible 4runner gas mileage (lots of stops) and a stop for lunch. The only delay we had was just outside Cedar, they went from 3 lanes to 1 to do some bridge work but that was only a 5 minute delay.
It was worth it. My wife was most interested in the parade since she grew up in B10 country and watched it every year. It’s cool that the floats are all made from organic material. We parked at Brookside (got the second row at 6 AM) walked to the rose bowl sign, got our vax check wristbands with no line and made our way to the parade. The parade itself was great. We had grandstand seats near Ralph’s, which was nice because we grabbed some food afterward. I wish we would have had seats in the main grandstand because the performers (Leann Rimes, Jimmie Allen) had already performed and just waved at us. The Utah marching band played Utah Man in front of us, so that was great. After the parade we grabbed to go food at Ralphs, walked back to our car and ate before going into the game. It wasn’t a terrible walk (maybe 1.5 - 2 miles each way) We never felt rushed the whole time and never had to wait in a line outside of the security zone check. From Brookside we saw an enormous line for the health check and walked to the west gate where there was no wait (This was maybe 1230 )
When we get to the Rose Bowl again, I’ll probably skip the Rose Parade but am happy that I experienced it at least once.
The parade was pretty cool. You’ll enjoy it, and the wife and kids will love it.
Set up as close to the west end of the parade route as you can. It’s about a 30-45 minute walk to the stadium from there. Just follow the crowd, and enjoy all the vendors selling knock-off gear along the way. If you set up towards the east end of the parade route, your walk gets a lot longer.
There are bleacher seats you can buy. Expensive, but worth it if you have mobility issues, or a pack of kids to track. I didn’t buy them, but I know folks who bought, and were happy with the purchase.
The viewing crowd along the parade route was only 3-4 deep. It was easy to find a spot with a good view, but you’ll have to stand unless you get there before sunrise. It’s likely covid kept the crowd down a bit.
I sat in the main grandstand right next to the TV towers and I loved it. The parade finished promptly at 10 a.m. and I had plenty of time to go back to my hotel before the beautiful walk to the stadium. But I kind of wish I had some edibles at the parade as the huge 35 foot tall mechanical chicken float went by…would have been a trip….
The parade was so much better than I expected. We had grandstand seats and the floats were so close and were so well done. The bands were excellent. I don’t think I would travel just for the parade, but if If I lived in the area, I would attend it again in a heartbeat.
This is where I sat as well. I figured, if I am traveling across the country, I would do the whole deal, parade and game and try to get the best seats possible without having to camp on the sidewalk. I pooh-poohed the parade right from the start and thought I would just chalk it up as a thing done, but… I really really had fun. It was really worth it.
I don’t generally like parades but we went to the Rose Parade about 10 years ago and loved it. Having good seats really helped. But once was enough.
Our travel experience was difficult but 100% worth it. For the next Rose Bowl we attend we’ll have a different approach. We all have to remember that we made this excursion in the middle of a worldwide pandemic that was surging. That was the only reason air travel was difficult. I’ve had the misfortune of traveling by air between Salt Lake and Los Angeles (both LAX and Burbank, sometimes Long Beach) literally hundreds of times, and I’ve never had an experience remotely close to what we had last week. It is usually a very routine flight. Same with the drive between SLC and LA. So take heart! It’ll get better!
That’s what happened with us. We missed the flight. I sent feedback to Delta on their website regarding the situation but didn’t hear anything back.So I did what I normally wouldn’t do but couldn’t think of anything else. I took it to Twitter.
I put out a tweet letting American Express know that after my experience with Delta I was basically ready to burn my Skymiles card. Boom, within half an hour I had “Jan” from Delta offering to handle my situation “personally”. I put Jan in quotes because pretty much all of us know that there is no Jan. Jan is a bot that watches for negative tweets.
The next day I got a DM from “Jan’s” assistant, then another assistant and boom, 68,000 miles refunded to my account plus a “loyalty bonus” of 5,000 miles plus two $150 flight credits toward a future flight on Delta.
Not necessarily true. I manage a social media group for a large company. They have a system that looks for tweets mentioning “Delta” or “Skymiles”. Those tweets are then reviewed by and responded to by real person. Jan might not be her name. There is a good chance it was Angelina in Manila or Dharminder in Hyderabad.
I can certainly see that but for brevity I didn’t mention some other traits of Jan. Jan’s DMs were very generic during our entire conversation. Additionally, after that they were really nothing more than information gathering. Plus none of the responses acknowledged some of the things I put into my responses. Mainly, I might add, to see if I was DMing with a person. It could have been a person that didn’t have time to be personable but my guess is not.
The assistant was obviously very real but my guess is that Jan wasn’t.
I wish I would have known. I could have given you a back route that would have taken you around almost all of the bridge construction delay at Littlefield.
When returning from Pasadena on Sunday, while sitting in traffic on I-15 at Littlefield, we noticed the frontage road on the South side of the freeway from Mesquite to Littlefield was backed up. When we arrived at the on-ramp that those cars would use to get onto I-15, we had to chuckle because highway patrol was preventing those vehicles from getting onto I-15 and they had to take the back route.
when we got to mesquite, Google maps rerouted us to old highyway 91 and the backway. We went the back way and chuckled as we passed all of you at a deadstandstill for miles and miles. Figure we saved about 45 minutes. (sorry; cant resist the urge to be a jerk)
