I've been home from Merrillville for a couple of hours and it was a great weekend in spite of the fact that General Clifton, Commissioner Clifton and Commissioner Eva Gaither were not able to be in attendance. Commissioner Israel Gaither, Commissioner Ken Baillie, Commissioner Joy Baillie, Lt. Colonel Barry Swanson, Lt. Colonel Sue Swanson, Dr. Charles Lake and Ken Medema all led us through a wonderful weekend together.

The CSB was very busy over the weekend starting with a rehearsal on Friday at 5:30 to put things together for the meeting that night. Then we had the meeting itself and were back on duty first thing on Saturday morning. At noon on Saturday we played a concert in the atrium and had an opportunity to play out some of our new repertoire for Australia. (Since some Aussie's actually are reading this blog I won't spill any beans about what we played. They will have to come to our concerts!) After the concert we grabbed some lunch and then went back to rehearse in the afternoon. Following a dinner break we were back on duty Saturday night and then again this morning and this afternoon.

For those that aren't familiar with the workings of the CSB you might wonder why we have to do all of the rehearsing at a weekend like this. Basically it is stuff that you can't do until you get there. We're often accompanying soloists that are from out of town or working on timings that can't happen until you are on site.

On the way home from Merrillville I-294 was completely closed down due to an accident. The accident was on the south bound lanes but they closed the north bound lanes to allow a medical helicopter to land. We just sat for quite a while. Turned out a semi truck had wrapped itself around a tree. No wonder they had to air lift someone out. Once we got past the accident the traffice moved pretty well.

All in all it was a good weekend and we really did play a lot. Now, we just have a couple of days of recovery before we get on the plane for Adelaide, Australia.

Will write more later. I should have some pictures to post from the weekend pretty soon.