Camping in Payson Canyon

A few weekends ago, we took a little couples' camping trip with our good friends Tyson & Jessica. We tried to get more people to come, but it ended up just being us four. And it was a great time!

We got started a little later than planned since apparently Brant & I have to pack a week's worth of things for an overnighter. Seriously...the car was PACKED! It looked like enough stuff for a family of 5 to be gone for a week. No joke. I tried to get a picture of what our car looked like, but it was too full to get a good one from where I sat in the front seat. And I forgot to take one before we unpacked. But you can kind of tell from this one.

We also almost had another delay when we almost locked our keys in the car when we were at the shop getting the chainsaw sharpened. Luckily, somehow my door remained unlocked so we were safe. But it was kind of a foreshadow for later on in the trip...

Anyway...after driving down to Payson and after searching for a while for a good campsite, we came upon a decent one and we set up camp. Here is the group setting up Brant's hammock. It wasn't the strongest of cord holding up the hammock & it broke when Brant tried it out for the first time. So after stringing it up again, he was a little hesitant climbing in. But it held. Though I wasn't too eager to try it out.

Despite the wildfire danger and the no fire signs we passed on the way up, we headed out in the woods to cut up some trees for a good nice fire to cook our dinners with. And of course so we could roast mallows & starbursts.

Isn't my man so sexy with a chainsaw?

Tyson helped out with the chopping of the wood while Jess & I just watched. We helped carry it back though. Then let the men do their work while we got dinner ready. We had tin-foil dinners. Yum!!

That night, we just hung around the campfire for a while until we got tired. Which wasn't that late since we have all become old married people who like to go to bed before 10. But we stayed up late that night. I think we got in our tents around 10:45. Rebels!

The next morning after a healthy breakfast of eggs & sausage, we did decided to ALL try out the hammock. Remember how I said the cord wasn't very strong? Yeah...it definitely didn't hold 4 adults. If you look closely you can tell that we're actually sitting on the ground in these pictures.

At this point we decided to pack up the cars and head down to the Payson Lakes. Tyson & Jessica didn't bring their swim suits and couldn't stay long, but we thought it'd be fun to at least hang out there for a little while and walk around. So we got all our stuff in our cars and shut the doors while we stood around and chatted for a bit. Then I went to get my water from the car and found out that the doors were locked. With our keys in the car.

Yep! We locked our keys in our car. Up a canyon. Where there is no cell service.

Luckily our friends are awesome and were willing to drive us down the canyon so we could call a locksmith to come open our car up. But the locksmith was in Provo. He said he could be there in 2 hours and it'd cost us $85. We decided to call the cops instead. The Sheriff that was called followed us up the whole canyon back to our camp ground (without knowing that he was following the people he was coming to help). He was very nice and with the help of his awesome car-unlocking tools, he got our car unlocked in just a matter of minutes.

Sadly, all that time we took going down the canyon and back up meant that Tyson & Jessica didn't have time for the lakes. So they headed back home and Brant & I headed to the lakes for a swim in the very cold water.

Despite the cold water, we had a good time just relaxing out in nature. Well...he relaxed as I spent the majority of the time swatting bugs (mainly bees...eek!) away from me.

Since we hadn't really expected to stay all day up the canyon, we hadn't packed food for lunches. So we didn't stay too long at the lakes. It was just a couple of hours before our tummies started rumbling and we headed down the canyon to get food from a little burger & shake place.

On our way home, Brant started getting tired. So to wake him up, we stopped at Cabella's. I'd never been there before (I KNOW!!), so he had to show me around the whole store. I must say it's pretty amazing! And we couldn't leave without buying SOMETHING. And since we plan on going backpacking soon with Brant's dad & brother and neither one of us have fishing poles to take...we got two red fishing poles. I contemplated getting a pink one that lit up as you reeled in your fish. But I'm pretty sure I'd get sick of the green and yellow lights after only a short time. Plus the red ones we got were cheaper.