Hello, I am Vinson Chen, former Treasurer of the Nite Lites. Nite Lites have been around since the year 2002. We are the first youth leadership group amongst the eight Beacons in San Francisco. We do community service and build a team of youth leaders, though most of our community service has resided at Chinatown Beacon Center events. This group has endured many troubles until lately, when we started to join back into a group and give back to the community. This camping trip at Big Basin was planned for a very long time until we have finally got everything together for it. Through much planning we finally got to rejoice on the crop we planted so long ago.

This camping trip was on the 17th of August. As eighteen members of the Nite Lites met at the Chinese Historical Society of America with five of the staff, we all worked together to pack up the vans for our camping trip. Our trip was around two hours to the campsite. When we got to the campsite, the park ranger wasn’t there to unlock the trailer so we started with some games and some questions to allow us to better know each other. Later we took a hike to where our showers were and most of us went to a waterfall near the campsite while the others went back to the campsite to help set up.

Back from the waterfall we had to set up our tents. Everyone had tents that were able to be set up, but my group was missing poles for the tent so we had to set up another tent until we found out that we were missing a pole again. After setting up the tents we had dinner. Our dinner was chicken skewers and pita bread. It was satisfying but then I noticed plenty of mosquitoes in our campsite. The night hike was great though exhausting. We got to feel nature with our working senses. The next day we went hiking. Half the group would lead and the other followed half an hour behind, following trail markers to get to the point they wanted us to be. Our day soon ended but we had chili for dinner and at night we had our spooky skits that we acted out ourselves.

Our last day was a recap on the camping trip. We went to a park to have lunch. Then we played a game called “The Blob”. It was great and it drained plenty of energy out of us. As we said our farewells to the park and Big Basin we journeyed back to San Francisco. This camping trip was very fun and I felt that our group came a bit closer together. Though our planning of activities was very off, we managed to get things together, and had a lot of fun. I hope we can plan this every year. As every second dies and a new second comes, my memories of this trip will forever live in my heart and soul.