My GoPro came in the mail, and initially, it was intended for much less than filming an entire trip, but when the bags piled high in the buses as we geared up to leave for Minnesota, the idea came to mind. What if I filmed this trip? Day by day, I thought, something we can look back on. When I produced this, I never intended to make it sad, but it turned into filming the seniors and the last trip we would take to Minnesota.

Waking up every morning, whether it was nearing nine or waiting for the sun to rise, we would grab the GoPro and start the morning vlog. Filming the classic hotel morning wakeups with two other teammates, getting ready for the long day to come, the cold walks to get breakfast, where the piercing Minnesota cold allowed such intensity for us to see our breath. To film where we would play, the rinks that hold anywhere from four to ten thousand people. To the people and seniors who were experiencing this all for the first time, watching their eyes gaze up into the stands and across the ice and imagining the feeling of skating in a place that was the home to so many stars.

Getting to relive these experiences through another lens will go unnoticed for a while, and that is okay. With the memories fresh in our consciousness, they are not entirely missed yet. However, there will come a day when they no longer live on so easily, and these videos will be cherished. They will be remembered in a way that holds power; to the seniors, power is time with the people you care about. There is nothing better than looking back on a time when you were surrounded by the people you care so deeply about in such a new and telling environment. Not to say that the undergraduates will not agree with that statement, but they will get to do it all over again next year, just with different people.

And that goes into my last point: the people. After I finished looking through the film from the weekend, it dawned on me that no matter what I filmed or where, looking back would always mean something because I was with these people. So maybe it was not Minnesota that made this time special; it was the people with whom it was spent. It does not always have to be a big trip or an out-of-the-ordinary experience to realize your time with these people, your family, is limited. While these trips always hold boundless joy and memories, nothing is more significant than knowing it does not take place or event to make the time with your community fulfilling.