The day had finally come; it was time for the beach-camping trip. I went with eight of my friends of various ages and colleges to Escribano Point across from Navarre Beach, Florida.

After a long four hours of being crammed in my friend's backseat, we made it to the campground. Our reservation had a wooden fence, a place to burn firewood, a picnic table, and a port-o-potty. It finally hit me that this was a CAMPING camping trip with no electricity or anything of the sort. It was very cold the first night as well, so I was starting to expect the worst. The boys tried to start a fire for two hours, and me and my friend Anna (one of three Annas on the trip) drove to the nearest Tom Thumb for lighter fluid. When we returned, they had not only started the fire, but our dinner was completely cooked. Things were definitely started to look up!

The next morning, we woke up from the sun shining in our tent; IT WAS BEAUTIFUL! We were right on the bay and the weather was perfect. We cooked eggs and sausage (without any salt, oops) and had a nice, relaxing day. We chilled in our hammocks, had impromptu photo shoots with my friend's nice camera, made great conversation, and even learned to swing dance.

The sunset on the bay was something to behold. We took more pictures and ran around like idiots. We went on a "nature walk", which turned into tiptoeing around quicksand. Who knew there was quicksand in Florida? I certainly did not.

We later played this game some of my friends learned about on their trip to Alaska this past summer. It's called star-tipping. You all go out to an open area after the sun goes down, stand in a circle, and have one person in the middle. The person at the middle is supposed to focus on a star while standing and spinning. Once they start to get really dizzy, other people shine a phone light directly in their face, which causes them to lose mobility and dramatically stumble to the ground. It's both stupid and ridiculously fun. The best part was getting a middle-aged drunk woman from the neighboring reservation to play with us.

We left the next morning, spending most of the car ride sleeping and eating food we didn't have to cook over a campfire. We were exhausted, but super sad to leave.

My point? GO ON TRIPS WITH YOUR HOMETOWN FRIENDS!!! After you all go your separate ways for college, everyone comes back with funny stories, cringe-worthy experiences, many firsts, a few lasts, and awesome life advice. Even if it is as simple as camping, go make new memories together while you all still can. You never know when one of your friends will be getting engaged, moving, or just busy beyond belief. You won't regret it, I promise.