If you know who I am, then you know that every year I spend 2 weeks of my summer at YMCA Camp Pinewood, located in Twin Lakes, Michigan. Twice a year there, once in the spring, and once in the fall, I travel to take part in their Volunteer Work Weekend.

Last weekend was no different. I spent all weekend doing work projects to help get the camp ready for summer. On Saturday morning, after a great breakfast of french toast sticks, my brother and I helped move picnic tables onto cabin porches as well as preparing the waterfront for the summer by moving boats to the beach and setting up the hammocks.

After a cheeseburger lunch, my brother and I started what we were most looking forward to: a video tour of the entire camp. With our friends Jared Bengston and Benito “Burrito” Moreno, we spent the next several hours walking around camp and filming every trail using a Go-Pro provided to us by my father.

After a spaghetti dinner, while most people were off doing different activities, I transferred the video files from the tour onto my computer, and began to edit the video clips, making the travel times down the paths much quicker and moving any parts we messed up (AKA, parts that either we fell apart laughing or when Burrito purposely messed up the shot) to the end, calling those parts “Burrito Bloopers”.

I also found on my computer many earlier videos we did with Jared and his brother Noah. So for the next 30 minutes, I watched these videos and was reminded of old times with the Bengstons.

There was a campfire down near the lake, so I went down there at one point, and joined in several rounds of Night Ga-Ga Ball. Soon after that, I went to bed.

In the morning, after breakfast, we got one more trail for the video tour, and then we packed up and left. Jared rode along with us, for we were meeting with his dad, Erik, at the nearest Red Robin. Jared got a burger that included ghost pepper sauce and whole jalapeños. When he ate the two spicy things together, he really felt the burn.

Camp Pinewood is always a great place to visit, especially if you can help them out with preparing for the things to come in the future. I encourage all of you to visit Camp Pinewood at some point so you too can experience the beauty that is YMCA Camp Pinewood.