Laboring with the campfire on Labor Day weekend at New Hampshire

The first long weekend of my career...... Yeah like all things you start appreciating them when you don't get them often... Though there was a dark cloud looming on the horizon in the form of Hurricane Earl... Threatening to spray dampening showers on my camping trip.. But it decided to swirl away from where I was (seems it was afraid of me)... and we had the perfect sunshine and weather as would be appropriate for the camping expedition...

Marinating our chicken..getting our spices.... filling our icebox with fluids applicable for people above 21 years old... the journey commenced.... heading for Bear River campground in New Hampshire.... The drive itself is not long, so we reached there around noon... With stomachs grumbling for food.. I geared myself to light the campfire... I was determined not to use the gas for cooking food... Everything was supposed to be cooked on campfire... So I created the foundation for the fire with small twigs, leaves, pine cones... laid the big logs on it and lit it.. the foundation burned out with much aplomb.. but the big logs.... they had no intention of burning... when I looked at the pile.. it seemed that it was jeering at me with its tongue out.. So with renewed determination I created another foundation.. this time a much bigger one and this time it burned out even more readily than before and the big logs did not even have a layer of soot on them... duh... now came the time for the lighter fluid... I sprayed it on the logs as if I was playing Holi with the logs... but still the logs had no intention of lighting.... So after much attempts and finally giving up on the task we resorted to cooking it on the gas provided to us... and then out of somewhere I hear a crackling noise... and I turned around to look at the pit.. there the campfire was burning away merrily, enjoying itself in its own blazing form, happy that it had won the fight with me... So at last my camp fire was burning.. The temperature had fallen down slightly, so gathering our chairs around the campfire, with cans of drinks in our hand, listening to nice music, looking out into the dark dark night, we sat..... I have never ever seen so many stars in the sky.. apart from at Nehru Planetorium..and yeah.. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai also has a sky with many stars.... than I saw on that day... the sky was draped in those twinkling jewels.. Just felt like gazing and gazing and gazing...

The next day was a drive to the Cannon Aerial Tramway in the White mountains... the first aerial tramway in the US... carrying people to an altitude of over 4000 feet.. From atop the mountains you could see more mountains into as fair as Maine... vast and green.. and beautiful... simply breathtaking views... which reminds me.. It was here where I took the breath away from an Amru aunty... :)... I was sitting on edge of the mountain on a rock.... admiring the beauty of the Cannon mountains... I think the lady was afraid of heights and seeing us in that place made her feel breathless... She was like... are you people nuts.. looking at you I cant even breathe.... After an hour we did a quick tour of the Flume which is a gorge created in the Mount Liberty and then headed back to the campsite...

The evening was dedicated to cooking kebabs and dum biryani on the camp fire which worked fine this time because we got better logs.... the end result was awesome... the kebab were grilled perfectly and were a sight to behold on those skewers... the dum biryani was full of Dum....

It is a beautiful combination.. chill in the air and the warmth of your comforter..... the next morning was to pack up and back to Boston... but not before I made sure that all the unburnt logs were burnt to ashes... hah.. dare they jeer at me again... :) :)... (by the way I had to use almost the entire tin of the lighter fluid to burn them down)...