This was a a much awaited camping trip ,. We had begun preparations month earlier. Manish had put together a beautiful list drawing on his prior camping experiences and we were prepared with stuff from mosquito cream to combat West Nile virus to Stomach upset medicines. We were seven . That is me (Abhi ), Bini , Manish , Rashi , Sanjeev , Pooja , Aryan  

We started from Corning in the evening and reached Allegany with light still up thanks to the long summer day and the daylight savings. We started with beer as all good things should be started and we were soon putting up the tent . We put Sanjeev's tent first and it was a little tricky and we spend quite some time to put it up . Then we put mine and it took less time as we knew the ropes and then Manish's tent was to be put. by now we were self declared experts and tried to improvise the procedure and ended up taking more time . So we came to the conclusion Always follow instructions to the dot.

Once we set up tents we set up the dinner table and we cut cake as it was Raasi's birthday and we smeared her with cake . The cake was lovely.

Then we had a campfire going . we roasted marshamallows in the fire . It was fun even aryan tried a hand in roasting marshmallows . We were quite exhausted by now and we sent to sleep . The night sleeping out was very interesting , There were lot of foxes making sounds and later we realized that it was manish and then Sanjeev and some other tent ers joined in the howling :)

The next day morning we found out that there has been some breach in security . We had accidentaly left some buns outside and it was eaten by some animal . We had been warned about bears . Anyway we did not know what animal it was . but it was strong enough to make a hole in the basket and take the bun out of the cover. Anyway luckily we had some bread so we had bread instead of bun along with scrambled eggs and hot tea for breakfast.

Making breakfast at the campsite is really a wonderful experience . and we had a good filling breakfast with orange juice and stuff.

Some shade time. Lying down in the open air is so realxing . No cases for Sanjeev

After breakfast we lied down and relaxed for a while . No laptops , No cell phone no Instant messener and NO Tv is actually a lot of fun . Then we heade down and rented a cycle and Binitha went cycling for some thime and then we both went cycling together .

After some hour of cycling we were exhausted and then we thought of catching little fish from the stream . We had lot of fun . We even caught a small lobster but we let it go after some time.

Next on the agenda was slow cycle contest . We all had loads of fun in that . We timed each person's lap and decided winners

Next we went boating in the lake . There were some water cycles. But since there were lots of weeds we could not rent the water cycles. we rented rowboats instead .

We came baack and then started out charcoal fire again and started grilling . We had Onion, bell pepeer , Sukini and chicken and some veg burgers all toasted to perfection .

We had a couple of rounds of beer and vodka and I guess we did have a litttle too much as I apparently was walking all around in circles when I thought I was walking straight . the next day morning was not the fun part in camping where you need to pick up your trash and clean the place. The hangover of the previous night was there . Well we picked trash and checked out of the camp by 11 and drove back. the 2 days close to nature had taken a toll on everyone . I guess we should never have mixed alcohols as it had quite unpredictable results. But then there will always be some thing that you need to set right the next time . But it was definitely a wonderful experience. Hopefully we will have another one before the summer is over.