I woke up to the sound of three voices in the midst of a debate.

“Should I throw it at her?” I heard my sister, Michelle, say.

“Yeah do it, it’d be funny!” Said Emily, a friend from my cabin.

“No, guys. Just let her sleep.” Elise, Emily’s twin sister scolded them.

I let out a few incoherent words, as I was still half asleep, then opened my eyes. The first thing I saw were the three girls staring at me with amused looks on their faces.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked.

Elise responded, “They were throwing a ping pong ball at you while you were sleeping. They did the same thing to me.”

I glanced at Emily then Michelle and noticed the orange ping pong ball in her hand.

“Why would you do that?” I asked in an annoyed tone.

I wasn’t really annoyed. How could I be? I was at my favorite place with some of my favorite people. It was a beautiful summer morning, and I had a full day of fun at the lake to look forward to. I was most definitely not annoyed.

It was merely the previous afternoon that my stomach churned as we turned the last corner before we’d arrive at our cabin. This same feeling consumed me every Friday of the summer. My family owns a cabin on Lake Alexander - about an hour and a half away from Park Rapids. The distance meant we would only go on the weekends. I squirmed in my seat when I saw the sign. “Bearfoot Cabins,” I read the sign to myself, “Thuringer, Deters, Witkin, Flolyd,” I continued reading the names of our neighbors.

We turned onto the dirt road leading to our cabin. The trees surrounding it were like gates leading to a magical kingdom. I found it hard to contain my excitement as we pulled up to our castle. In reality, our cabin hardly resembled a castle. My great grandpa built the cabin in 1965, and all of its original siding still covered it. The yellow paint was chipping in some places, the wood was rotting in others, but it was still magical to me.

I never minded going away with my family every weekend instead of hanging out with friends. Actually I preferred it. The cabin was my getaway, my safe place. I could do whatever I wanted when I was there. Climb trees, build forts, go swimming, go fishing, go rock hunting, ride my bike, all the things that excited my ten year old self.

The car came to a stop and I wasted no time jumping out and running up to the front door to give my grandma a hug. She lives in Arizona and comes up every summer to live at the cabin.

I heard my parents yell for me to help them unload the car. As we were finishing unloading, I saw the Pape’s car pulling up. They rolled down their windows and greeted us before continuing on to the end of the peninsula on which our cabins were located.

That was another thing I loved about our cabin. It sat at the base of the peninsula, so water occupied the space both in front of and behind the cabin. I always referred to the front dock as the swimming dock and the back as the fishing dock.

Michelle and I waited about an hour or so for the Pape’s to get settled at their cabin, then we went to ask Emily and Elise to hang out. I have always been super close with my sister despite her being four years older, so it was never a problem getting along with Emily and Elise as they were a year younger than Michelle. We played with them all day. We ate snacks at their cabin, played yard games such as bocci ball at ours, went fishing for sunfish at theirs and swimming at ours. As it reached dinner time we went our separate ways, but all agreed to hang out and have a fire that night.

Right after dinner they came to our cabin. It was still light out but we got the fire started anyway. As we were sitting around the fire, we all agreed that we didn’t want the day’s fun to end. We wanted to have a sleepover, but none of us wanted to sleep in the cabins. That’s when my mom joined the conversation.

“We have a tent you guys could set up.”

That was all it took for the four of us to jump out of our seats and get to work setting it up.

We got the tent out of its bag and put together the poles. Once everything was laying out in front of us we stopped. We weren’t exactly sure where to go from there.

“Mom!” Michelle yelled.

My mom emerged from our cabin and helped us set the tent up. After it was all set up Emily and Elise walked the short path back to their cabin to grab their pillows and blankets. Michelle went inside to have a snack, and I stayed out by the fire. This was my favorite time of day to be outside. The sun was setting; it was almost fully covered by the trees across the bay. As the sun went down so did my worries. It was a calming sight, and I could feel all the tension in my body vanish. I took a deep breath in through my nose and enjoyed the smell of the pine logs being engulfed by flames.

Though the cabin was my happy place, it wasn’t always necessarily a happy place all the time. My family had their fair share of issues and arguments, but at the end of the day, when the sun was setting, we were all able to put our problems aside and enjoy our favorite place.

Soon after the sun went down, Michelle joined me by the fire. She carried out s’mores stuff. We each made ourselves a s’more and ate them in silence while enjoying the taste of chocolate and melted marshmallow on the graham cracker.  It didn’t take long for Emily and Elise to become visible through the trees that lined the dirt road. They ran up to the tent, threw their stuff in, then they each had a s’more of their own.

The fire slowly died out while we arranged our items in the tent. I had wanted to be in the middle but got stuck on the outside. Next to me were Elise, then my sister, and on the other side of her sat Emily. I was very tired from the day’s activities, but I didn’t want to fall asleep. It was difficult to stay awake as I was wrapped up in a blanket my grandma made. It was the softest blanket I owned; made of the puffiest cumulus clouds in the sky. I listened to the other girls talking and interjected with funny comments when necessary. Eventually, I fell asleep to the sound of them talking.

I glared at my sister as she was the one holding the ping pong ball.

“I was trying to sleep,” I pouted.

She just laughed at me and apologized. I forgave her and moved on as I always do. I didn’t keep up my annoyed facade for long.

After chatting in the tent for a bit longer, we decided it would be a good idea to start cleaning up. As we were folding our blankets, I glanced around at everyone and smiled. I was so happy that we were all hanging out together. I don’t think I would consider the cabin such a happy place if I didn’t have such amazing people surrounding me.

The rest of the day was filled with family activities. We played games and floated on the lake with my grandma, had a nice family lunch, and ended the day watching Bridge to Terabithia for the millionth time that summer.

It saddened me when we started packing our bags the next morning. I didn’t want to leave my favorite place, though I knew I would be back the next weekend. Everytime I left the cabin I could feel myself getting that much older. I didn’t realize that in just a few years my time there would be almost nonexistent.

These past couple summers I have only been to my cabin a total of around six times. I’m working constantly in the summer which leaves little time for traveling. Even when I do make it to the cabin it’s never the same as it used to be. It is still one of my favorite places on the planet, but the energy that used to be there is gone. I’ve lost the desire to wake up at an unreasonable time to go fishing, I don’t feel the need to put my swimsuit on and jump off the end of the dock, and I can’t find the motivation to start a campfire anymore. I don’t hear from Emily and Elise anymore; most likely because I’m never at the cabin. And I know my sister lost touch with them as well. Maybe sometime a few years down the road we will all reunite again. Many things have changed over the years, and change can be sad but I believe everything happens for a reason. The changes that sadden me now could be what is best for my future. I’m grateful for all the friendships and memories given to me by my cabin.

As we drove away in my mom’s silver minivan, we all waved goodbye to my grandma in the front yard. I took in the scene one last time before it was out of sight. I noticed the yellow wood siding of the cabin was rotting in some places. The brick wall separating the dirt road from our yard was getting even shorter due to all the gravel being added to the road over the years. My grandma’s wooden bear Gravely was hanging in the tree swaying side to side in the wind. My dad kept driving, and soon our castle was out of sight.