Day 1/2 of Wharton Camp

Everyone arrived to our Annual Wharton Family Campout location by 4:00pm on Wednesday.  As previously mentioned, we were camping this year at Payson Lakes, which is up Payson Canyon.  The campground is at about 8,000 feet elevation, so it stays pretty cool all the time.  Days were warm, and if you sat directly in the sun at noon, you'd probably get hot, but the air was a very comfortable temperature during the day.  The nights cooled off considerable and we definitely wore sweats and hoodies or jackets while sitting around the fire or playing games in the evening.  Payson Lakes Campground has 3 loops of camping, some groups sites, and a beautiful (cold) lake, that some people swim in.  Lots of people canoe and kayak.  The camping areas are well-shaded with lots of trees.  They don't have flush toilets though, just the vault kind, which is always kind of a bummer.  It was a nice campground though, very roomy and quiet.

After stopping to visit, we started unloading and setting up.  My sister Dawn, from Idaho, had two sick kids with her.  Her son Jacob (10) and daughter Shelbie (15) had woken during the night sick and throwing up.  We appreciated her die-hard attitude and the fact that she didn't let a little vomit keep her from joining us on this long anticipated event, but DID encourage her to keep them and their nasty little "germ worms" (as Kev called them) tucked nicely in their camper, so the rest of us didn't get infected.

For dinner the first night, we always roast hot dogs, so eventually my pyromaniac nephew, Dillon (14) made us a fire and we had dinner.  After dinner, the men had a nice yak session, eating peanuts by the fire, and the women gathered around the picnic table for games.  Tonight we played Would You Rather?.  We had to determine whether other players would rather do one thing, or another.  Such as, "Would you rather chew a piece of toenail off a really dirty man's foot, or thoroughly lick the armpit of a man who hasn't bathed since a week?"  We got a big kick out of it.  Our favorites were the ones we had to make up ourselves.  By this time, both my sick niece and nephew were feeling much better, and were out and about a little.  We determined that this bug they'd caught was apparently just a 24 hour thing, which was a relief.  After that game, it was pretty late and we all headed to bed.