Drove this afternoon to the Rose Bowl stadium for a look at the closest thing to Santa's workshop south of the North Pole. It's a huge metal building filled with floats-in-the-making for the Rose Parade. Hundreds of volunteers called Petal Pushers - Santa's helpers, really - are busily and happily applying the finishing touches to 15 of the parade's 56 floats. (This and other float locations are open to public viewing.)

Since the floats can use only natural materials, that means we watched people cutting up Brussels sprouts (we knew there was a better use for them than eating) and gluing mums and slicing oranges and fluffing carnations. The carnation fluffers were a girl scout troop from Anaheim Hills working on a Universal Studios float featuring that Dr. Seuss feline, the Cat in the Hat. In the same shed were floats with a biplane, a dirigible, a lunar landing module and a pair of not-to-be missed T-Rexes. The dinos' scaly skin was faced with nut shells, lentils and a rainbow of dried bean varieties. Flowers are applied in the final day or two, with individual water vials for the roses and orchids.

One of the seemingly inexhaustible supply of friendly float-workers is Dick Gast, who beams when he learns we're from Wisconsin. Both he and his wife, Lynn, graduated from UW-Madison in the early '70s and moved to nearby Mission Viejo from Milwaukee 13 years ago. Why the move from God's country to decadent California? Dick's answer may be shocking to those who think frostbite is a tonic: "To get away from the cold." Dick, Lynn and their 14-year-old daughter, Becky, have worked as float volunteers for nine years because they love transmogrifying lentils and roses into motorized artistic creations.

Came back to the hotel late today on the Ventura Freeway with our windows rolled down and The Police singing "Murder by Numbers" on the radio. Best of all, we cruised at 75 because traffic was light, by California standards.

Next up tomorrow - hold on to your hats - is the Wisconsin Marching Band . . .

(From top to bottom: Volunteers glue minature oranges in place for the Unocal 76-sponsored "Dinomania" float during the Roses Parade float construction; the hustle and bustle inside the float warehouses; 'Cat in the Hat' petal pushers; and Badger fans sleeping poolside.)

More postcards:
Dec. 28: Westard ho!
Dec. 28: Thawing out
Dec. 28: LA scene
Dec. 29: Old Pasadena
Dec. 29: Roses HQ
Dec. 29: Petal pushers
Dec. 30: 90210
Dec. 30: 90210, cont'd
Dec. 30: A sea of red
Dec. 31: Venice Beach
Jan. 1: Rose Parade
Jan. 1: The Game
Jan. 1: The Game, cont'd
Jan. 2: P.S.

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Photos by Jeff Miller, text by Jeff Iseminger.