I love fall so much! I love the cool weather and the colorful leaves. I love sitting outside with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book. I love hiking in the woods, the dry leaves crunching under my feet. I love bonfires with family and friends. Fall is just full of wonderful memories for me.

One of my very favorite fall memories as a child was in a place called Old Missouri Town. It was a Civil War era town complete with log cabins and one room schoolhouse. The fall festival there is still one of my very favorite things to attend. You can smell the campfire smoke as soon as you walk in the gates. You can talk to Civil War soldiers and fur trappers, see a Native American teepee, and learn to shoot a bow. If you get thirsty, you can get a glass of homemade hot apple cider or the best homemade root beer you can ever imagine. And for lunch there’s always food stands with delicious pies and cakes.

Okay, so maybe Old Missouri Town doesn’t sound all that exciting. Nonetheless, it’s still one of my favorite places to go in the fall. Maybe it’s the revisiting of childhood memories that makes it so special for me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about memories ever since I moved to college. Somehow it feels like memories are all that I have left, despite the fact that I know I can always go back home. It’s kind of sad to think about all that I’ve left behind. Finding a new normal is hard sometimes. But often times it’s the memories that keep me going; along with the promise of new memories to be made. It’s nice to go back and visit home and all of my old high school friends, but it’s hard not to miss my college friends when I’m away. I have some great memories with them, too.

Like the time when the girls across the hall and I went to the park to feed the ducks and ended up getting chased around by a demon goose. Or when we all went disc golfing and had to rescue several discs from being lost in the creek. Or our daily game of see-how-many-people-can-fit-around-one-lunch-table. But my favorite memories by far are just hanging out with my friends, whether it be serious or goofy conversations. It’s the little things, right?

The best part is, this is only the first semester of my freshman year. I have three and a half more years to have fun with friends and make goofy memories. The future is a blank journal ready to be filled with countless days’ events. Who knows what goofy situations I’ll find myself in? I hope I end up with a lot of fun stories to tell when I’m old. And I hope I commit every moment of them to memory.

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” -Dr. Suess