The cabin is on a dirt road that is a couple miles long with only two neighbors. Except for our cabin and the two other houses up there, there is nothing but forest surrounding the lands. I always found it amazing that we had a brook running right alongside our property. As a little kid I spent hours upon hours splashing around in the mud, eating raspberries, and keeping an eye out for moose and bear. I didn't usually see them, but sometimes I did.

High up in the mountains, thunder sounds different. Instead of a clap of noise coming down from the sky, the thunder at the cabin sounded like it was rising up out of the ground, like a struck bass drum. The wind was like this too, you could feel the ground breathing.

The morning smelled like morning, and I have no idea how to put that in words. Something about the evaporating dew on leaves and pine needles leaves an unmistakable scent. At night, the air was cool and crisp, even in the warmer months.

My mom always used to say that the mountains were beautiful because they looked different every time she looked at them. This is of course, true. Go there in the fall and you'd be convinced God was a painter, in the winter, that he was a skier. Though you rarely needed to wait for the seasons to change, the mountains wore their emotions on their sleeves, and you could see their darkness in rain, and brightness in the sunshine.

When I think of looking at the stars on a clear night from this tiny cabin, I realize this is where I met God, not in my force-fed religious schooling. When I think about this, it makes me want to show my own kids this some day. I want them to see that beauty and wonder are all around them, not just crammed up in some books to be passed down by holy men.

This tiny little cabin, with barely enough room to fit a family, became a warm place at night. My family didn't usually spend a lot of time together, but when we were there, it was different. My mom and dad would play Setback, my brother and I would play the good old NES on a TV that barely worked because it was used so infrequently. We'd all eat our meals together, and we'd laugh together.

Ever since I was little, I always dreamed about going up there with someone I loved, to spend a quiet weekend and explore together. New Hampshire's White Mountains aren't far, and places like Franconia Notch or Mt. Washington are too amazing to describe. Actually, this almost happened once, with Emily. She got really sick half of the way through the trip though, and we ended up at the hospital and my childhood dreams were somewhat dashed by the cold reality of life. Nevertheless, this is still one of my 'dream vacations' because it seems so romantic.

When things started to go bad between my parents, we stopped going to the cabin so much. It got into disrepair, and really started to fall apart. I think it took a while for my Dad to get his heart back into it after they split, but these days, he's up there working on it most weekends in the summer. Though I'm sure he enjoys the work on its own, I know why he's doing it overall. He wants to pass this down to me and my brother, the way his parents did to him and his brothers. He's the only one who uses it, and I think the same thing will happen with me.

Still, you can bet that even if I end up doing something crazy like trying to raise a family in Boston or NYC, I'll be spending some weekends up there. If for nothing else, to show a new generation a glimpse of more simple times, where high speed internet wasn't as essential as food, water, and basic shelter. How many kids in America these days have ever even used an outdoor toilet? My guess is not so many, but mine will.

We don't need to throw away our creature comforts or renounce the convenience of modern society, but we need to be careful not to forget about what is pure, simple, and natural. My cabin gives me a great opportunity to remember that.