(Catherine Ernst is a member of the Broughton High School Marching Band that performed in the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day. She wrote about the experience at share.triangle.com/broughtonband. Here is what she posted on Wednesday, the day after the parade, and late Friday night).

WEDNESDAY

Today after breakfast we went to go look at all the floats. It was so wonderful to get to see them, since we had only been able to see a few. I was amazed with all the colors and how many flowers there were. Some red roses had already started to turn black and others were drooping. It is crazy to think about how much time and effort people put into decorating them for one day only.

From the floats we drove about an hour to Universal Studios. It was so neat to get to see certain props that have been used in different movies and shows. We got to see a shark that was used in "Jaws" and they were talking about how they never knew whether or not it would work. Because of this, they started calling it "Flaws"!

FRIDAY

I just got home and I can't begin to express how happy I am to be in my own house!

Yesterday (our last day in California) was spent at Sea World. We all saw a bunch of shows and, most importantly, we got to see Shamu! He is a killer whale and Sea World is known for him. My favorite show was the dolphin show. I was amazed at how high the dolphins could jump. After Sea World, we went to Seaport Village for dinner. We got back to the hotel around 9 p.m. California time.

This morning, I had to be downstairs on the buses to go to the airport by 5:40 a.m. California time. None of us were awake. The hotel had prepared boxed breakfasts for us to take with us. Luckily, we had no problems making our flights and as far as I know, no luggage was lost. My flight had a layover in Chicago.

We were able to make the transition smoothly from one plane to another. From Chicago, we flew to Charlotte, where we had buses driving us another three hours back to school.

We pulled into the parking lot at about 10 p.m. North Carolina time. We all went up to the band room, put away our instruments, turned our uniforms in and headed on our way.

I know all of us had a blast in California, and none of us will ever forget the experience of marching in the 2008 Tournament of Roses Parade. I am glad that you all were able to follow our trip there and back and have an idea of what it is like to go on a band trip and march in a humongous parade. I hope that you enjoyed hearing about what we were up to, and I want to thank you all for all your support. The Broughton band would not have been able to make this trip if it wasn't for our great community of Raleigh backing us one hundred percent.