It might sound sophomoric, but I regard the title of “best friend” with deliberate honor. To have a best friend is a gift I don’t ever take for granted, and to be called a best friend is an esteemed emblem that warrants pride. This being said, I do believe we can have more than one best friend, as we have richly unique chapters in our lives where certain players enter for, in my opinion, specific and divine reasons. Some enter to provide conflict which leads to growth or necessary change, some enter to provide guidance and support which helps us navigate the unknown, and some enter to provide love, light, laughter, and adventure which colors in the pages, enchants our experiences, and often determines the course of our next chapter. I have found that a “best” friend emerges from this cast when you discover two essential truths in another: your fundamental values, and I’m not talking political preferences, but rather your molecular level values, are mirrored, and when the other inspires you or motivates you to be a better version of yourself simply by being themself.

I have been lucky enough to have a few different best friends through my 30 years on planet earth. Two of these women, Cara and Jackie, have been my best friends through the most tumultuous and transformational years in my life thus far. Eight years ago these two best friends and I decided to take a leap of faith and go on a wild adventure into the California unknown together and unsurprisingly after that first adventure, I went from the addition sign to a third constant in the equation that we came to coin “the trifecta.” As if I wasn’t lucky enough to separately call them both my best friends, my best friends became best friends with each other and we developed a sacred bond that lies powerfully dormant for most of the year and then re-erupts each summer. We made our “trifecta summer trip” an annual tradition that has punctuated my life for the last eight years. I used to be most excited for our destination on these trips, but as the years have progressed, our trips are far more about the company, and the destination has simply faded into a backdrop. Sure, we still like to select a desirable destination, preferably one with a prolific wine scene, but I think for all three of us, our trifecta trips are far more relationship based. Something happens to all three of us on these trips where we feel completely disembodied from reality, encouraged by one another to lean in to reverting to child-like states, and liberated to shed old skins and share new goals with one another, which for me, inevitably leads to a new personal beginning. I’ve said this about girls trips in the past, they are necessary; necessary for sanity, growth, and happiness. These trips, however, with my two best friends who have forged their own friendship, possess a catalytic chemistry that function as my New Year’s Eve and Day in one long weekend.

Though, as I pen this now, it’s been eight years since we started the tradition, we took one sort of “off year” when I spent a whole summer abroad. Therefore, our most recent trifecta adventure (2018) was actually officially Year 6 of our tradition. Summer of 2018, we were all feeling the consequences of bachelorette parties, vacations with our S.O.s, weddings, and, though we are sans children, other expenses that come with being gainfully employed adults living in expensive cities and suburbs. So, we had a few criteria for Year 6’s destination: inexpensive, natural beauty, somewhere we hadn’t been, and wine abundant. On a whim, Cara suggested her grandparents’ cottage on Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes of upstate New York. A free place all to ourselves on a lake in a pastoral setting with a notable wine scene? Jackie and I eagerly voiced interest!

Come July 3rd, Cara and I drove to NYC where we scooped Jackie, and then all three of us made our escape into the pastel sunset as it unfurled itself into the bowling greens and stretches of crops along the rural highways. By the time we reached the cottage on Cayuga, the last drop of sunset was dripping down beyond the horizon, so we ran out of my SUV and onto the long and worn private dock, our flip flops hitting the planks like an old wooden xylophone. After snapping several sunset-over-still-waters photos, we unloaded and took a tour of our digs we would call home for the next 4 days. I have two words for our humble abode: time warp. Cara’s sweet grandparents, who were both school teachers and vacationed in the cottage every summer, bought the cottage 50 years ago, and though they had splurged for a lovely addition to the home, preserved the integrity of the cottage in all her simplistic, vintage, sun-bleached glory. Stepping into that house was like unearthing a shoe box time capsule from your childhood home backyard. Being a nostalgic millennial, I felt right at home. The only drawback: no AC. We spent the rest of that evening and late night drinking wine on the deck, gazing up at a glittering night’s sky, catching up and pretending to remember constellations, which ultimately led to using a constellation app on our phones.

The next morning we rose fairly early to make the trek out to Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY for their annual 4th of July “Pignic.” Cara, following in her mother’s admirable footsteps, is a climate warrior and a passionate, yet not annoying, Vegan. Over the years she has taught me a lot about living a plant based life, and though I am far from fully plant based as of now, because of her, I have been leaning in to getting to fully plant based, likely in another year. I don’t eat any red meat or pork anyways, but as a result of our visit to the Farm Sanctuary coupled with Cara’s gentle teaching (not pressuring), I have slowly but surely been weaning myself off of chicken and turkey, and hope to eventually be off of seafood as well. At any rate, the Farm Sanctuary is a truly special place for animal lovers. We indulged in a decadent, 4th of July “barbecue” equipped with all the staples; macaroni salad, potato salad, “brats”, “burgers,” only everything was plant based. It was all incredible! After our feast we got to walk around the sanctuary and interact with all the happy, healthy, rescued animals. We hugged a lot of goats, pet a turkey (yes, a turkey), snapped selfies with cows, marveled at the size of some gargantuan pigs taking gargantuan naps, and squeeled with glee as we watched some piglets go for a mud bath. I fell in love with a handsome cow named Merlin. I kissed a cow and I liked it.

On our way back from the pignic, we stopped in Aurora, a charming little town lined with restored Victorian homes, an upscale hotel, a pub, and a sweet little wine shop. We popped into the wine shop to enjoy our first Finger Lakes wine tasting, which pleasantly surprised us! We knew the Finger Lakes had a renowned wine scene, but so does Virginia and I for one am yet to try a Virginia wine that holds a candle to a California or Washington varietal. This being said, I was skeptical at best but happy to report my skepticism was quickly debunked. Known for their dry Riesling, the Finger Lakes wine gave Napa a run for its money! We purchased a couple bottles before heading back to the cottage for the first of many dock chill sessions. We sat on that private dock from late afternoon until well past sundown, gabbing, laughing, and doing what all respectable 30-year-olds do, playing truth or dare. That evening we cooked a healthy veggie-rich dinner, invented a game involving the dictionary, played the 1940 version of Clue, and drank several bottles of wine… and possibly consumed a brick of cheese each.

The next morning heralded our wine country day. We used a company called Stompin Good Times for transportation. The car picked us up at 11 from our cottage and took us to four different wineries before returning us back to the cottage at 5 PM. This was highly affordable and well worth it! We packed a cooler for lunch and donned our cutest Provençal looks for the occasion. Our driver was a delight, albeit, likely perturbed by our ceaseless selfie taking and backseat giggling that only increased as the day, and the wine, waxed. Sadly, I don’t remember all four names of the wineries we visited, but I do remember my favorite wine we had was at Thirsty Owl, an unassuming winery with a laid-back, fun vibe and generous wine pourers. There are literally over 100 wineries in the Finger Lake region, and you can’t go wrong at any of them. Even if the wine isn’t to your liking, most of the wineries boast gorgeous views of either rolling hills and farmland or the shores of one of the sprawling lakes.

That evening welcomed another giggly, game-filled night that we capped off with a viewing of Titanic on VHS on the 1 foot screen by 3 foot bulbous depth TV that attracted a slew of bugs. Again, it was nostalgia at its finest, and at many times, felt like summer camp.

The following morning we went for a short hike on the Great Gully trail, a trailhead that was just steps from our cottage. The hike is super easy and short, but offers a lovely reward of a small lagoon and waterfall. It’s probably much more powerful during the spring, it was like a dainty rainfall shower for us due to the heat and lack of rain. However, this didn’t stop us from stripping down, wading in, and cooling off in the shaded privacy of the thick of the woods.

This evening marked our “big night out,” which in the Finger Lake region simply means going out for dinner. Prior to dining out, we stopped for a little culture (I guess you could call it that) at the MacKenzie-Childs barn for a tour of the, as one could imagine, whimsically decorated mansion. The tour was slightly over-the-top, but probably riveting for an interior decorator. We enjoyed ourselves, but I’d say it’s not a must-do unless you’re really into the MacKenzie-Childs ceramics, decorating, or learning about boring, rich white people. After our visit to the barn, we got drinks at the pub across from the Aurora Inn where we were having dinner. The pub is slightly dingy and charmingly divey on the interior, and then has a bewitching little outdoor patio with ample seating. We opted for al fresco and giggled over wine until our table was ready at the Aurora Inn.

A popular wedding venue, the Aurora Inn perches atop a bowling green hill that hugs the edge of Cayuga Lake. We got a gorgeous outdoor deck table where we dined like queens on fresh seafood and champagne, whilst reveling in a bird’s eye view of an elegant wedding taking place in a tent on the green below. I’ve never been to Cape Cod or The Hamptons, but the scene conjured images for me of what I could imagine that North Eastern Shore life of luxury might entail. After dinner we went for drinks at the pub across the street from the inn, but called it an earlier night as we feared we wouldn’t be able to get a cab home to our remote digs if we stayed out past 11. Back at the ranch, Jackie and I stayed up later than necessary imbibing also unnecessary amounts of wine.

On our final day we decided to embrace lake life full out by posting up on the dock from morning until night, stepping inside only to grab more wine or cheese. Sometimes plant based life needs to pause for days spent on docks in north eastern wine country. We even took our dinner down to the dock on our final evening as to not miss a second of that au natural paradise. Girls trips offer us a suspension from reality; a time to be free to revert, to laugh loudly and share honestly, and to unleash jokes and questions with unbridled inhibitions. Sitting out on that dock with my two best buds was all of those things at once that make girls trips so enriching and necessary to the soul. As I said, these trifecta trips punctuate each of my years and more so serve as my new beginning or New Year’s Day than actual New Year’s Day, so how coincidentally fitting it was for the neighbor to shoot off mortar fireworks just above our dock on this final night on Cayuga! We also lit some sparklers just the three of us and as the fireworks set the onyx sky ablaze and our pom-poms of shimmery sparks reflected off the languid ripples of the lake, we all three heralded a new year, with new goals, new wishes, new senses of self, but always, the same old best of friends.