Today, we finally left for Charles City to start our PRE TOUR!

We repacked some percussion stuff to start off the day. It turned out we had overpacked, but I’d take that over under-packing and being unprepared. So life for the percussion section, setup crew, and loading crew is a bit easier!

Later in the day, we were blessed by the wonderful Dr. Wendland. Her message for sending us off reminded me of what Doc has been telling us for a while. We will not be the same people we were before this trip. We will change in more ways than we can possibly imagine. We are constantly being reminded that we will become much different. I believe it every time, and I am so excited to see who I become in the next month.

The music boosters club of Charles City raised money to provide a fantastic dinner for us at Pizza Ranch. It was nice to sit down and just be with the ensemble along with wandering around to talk to others in the band.

I think my favorite part of the day was being able to use judges’ sheets for making comments about the high school’s performance. I thought it was incredibly fun because I’d like to think that one day I could possibly judge. I loved being able to see the score and making comments about real students instead of my peers pretending to not be music majors. It makes me excited for the future.

Today was a great day, and here’s why. Today, I spent time with my band family doing what we love. I cannot wait to go to Japan with this group of wonderful people.