Best friends, Ashley Jennett and Janet Lurssen payed homage to their friendship and life of traveling pre-kiddos by planning the ultimate playdate. The husbands stayed at home, the littles with the mamas, and together all five of them, plus Janet’s twin babies on the way, camped out at the same exact sites they had both traveled to eight years prior. If ever there was a way to enjoy the last days of summer, this would be it.

We did a lot of traveling–her and I–before life was what we know it as today. It was just the two of us girls then, me driving and her acting as co-pilot. We spent one night on a sandbar, underneath the stars, on the Colorado River in Potash, Utah.

Fast forward eight years later, driving down the same road, praising the angels above that nothing bad ever happened to us, ever, on any of our travels together. And there were many. We pass the same campground we stayed at back then in Moab, trade memories of doing our laundry at the campground and putting together scrapbooks and talking our way out of speeding tickets. Who knew that visiting a town would unlock little mementos of tiny little memories that would have otherwise been forgotten like leaves falling from a tree and blowing away.

Back then, we had no iPods and no iPhones. We made CDs for the road and blasted our favorite ones over and over again. We had a book the size of the yellow pages with listings of campgrounds and directions to get to them. We had Thomas Guides, for goodness sakes.

As we glance behind us in our rented minivan, we can’t help but giggle about how much has changed–the kids, the car seats, the twin babies on the way, the husbands back home, Siri telling us to “continue to the highlighted route.”

We splash around in the same river that allowed us to rest our tired heads on its banks years ago. My dearest friend, feeling weightless, despite the babies in her belly. Her daughter, feeling brave. My oldest son, feeling free. My youngest son, dropping a load in his pants that rolls out later and surprises us all. And me, feeling grateful to add another memory with my best, most treasured friend to the proverbial bank.

Isn’t that just the best trip ever? And we’re happy to report that Janet gave birth to her twin babies just a few weeks ago!

Places they visited: Little Sahara, Takeout Beach (on the Colorado River, Utah), and Moab Under Canvas