Since 2016, my Kankakee County-centric friend group has been taking trips together. Because I didn’t join the group until the year of the pandemic, my first Friends Trip wasn’t until 2021, when we went to a rustic ranch in Indiana.

The next summer, we went to Marshall, Illinois, to a large home that the group had stayed in on several previous occasions. With a large dock and lake access, it’s a great spot for renting a pontoon by day and stargazing by night.

With a couple of out-of-state weddings for friends and the general busyness of life, we didn’t take an official Friends Trip for three years.

That pause was lifted this past weekend when a group of 17 of us made our way to Dixon for two nights on Rock River. Though I never went to summer camp as a kid, this is what I would imagine the adult version to be. Lots of games, campfires and arts and crafts, but with beer.

Over the course of 30ish hours, we played Uno and Euchre, went on several walks, kayaked, played volleyball and recreated the opening sequence of “Scooby Doo.” Throughout the weekend, one friend, who is an art teacher, had a canvas and paint set up on the dining table where we would stop and take turns adding abstract shapes and bursts of color. What started as kind of a mess turned into a remarkably cool piece of art.

The highlight of the weekend was playing Sardines, where one person has to pick a hiding spot in the house and then everyone else runs around to find them. As each person finds the hider, they too take up the hiding place until there is one person left searching. Let me tell you, trying not to giggle and give away your hiding spot while standing in a dark laundry room with 10 of your friends is quite difficult.

It was a nice timeout from the real world, where we only really looked at our phones to take the occasional photo. Thank you to my friends for always being up for a fun and funny time.