Toasted Bagels

We are back from camping in the cold. Now, I know that New Jersey is not so very cold, after all, I grew up in Idaho and I know cold. However, in November, the weather can be all over the map. It's been shirt-sleeve warm and wool gloves cold. Within a week.

So since the teachers in NJ get two weekdays in November to attend a union convention (which only 16% of them do, according to the paper this morning), we took the long weekend to go camping. We were smart enough to head south about 2 hours, and it turned out to be a good thing. Our other choice was a campground about 1 1/2 hours north, and they got snow. We had low 40's, below freezing at night, rain Saturday morning, and then a heavy frost on Sunday. We had a roaring campfire going most of the time - except during the rain while the guys were stringing up a tarp for protection. But as soon as they had the tarp up, they built another fire. Between the 5 families that camped, we brought down a LOT of wood, and went through all but a tiny stack of it. And we would have used that up except the last morning we used charcoal so people could toast bagels easily.

But it was still fun, although we all complained about the cold, and pretty much all we did was sit around the fire. Last year, we went north and it was in the 60's. You never know. We had trailers with heaters - the boy scouts on the other side of the campground were in tents. In the rain.

Yes, in New Jersey, we toast bagels any way we can. Cut them in half and use a sturdy stick, they're pretty heavy.