Evacuated!

Every year, busy life permitting, we go to Brandon's Campout. Out of 7 years I think we have made 5. The campout is put on by our awesome friends and old neighbors, the Chambers...Norm, Sharee, Laurie (Norm's sister) and family. Somewhere in the beginning, not sure how or why, their son Brandon claimed the campout as his own, and from that point on it became Brandon's Campout. A great time when a bunch of current and old neighbors (we were their neighbors in Orem) get together up Payson Canyon and camp for a few days. Friday we set off for Payson (Dana had gone up earlier on Thursday) with our jello salad for 16, tent, chairs and everything else needed for a good time, only to look off in the distance and see a stream of gray smoke rising off the side of the mountian. I told Jerry, "That's probably right where we are headed". Sure enough. We get to the mouth of Payson canyon and were greated by rows of cars, campers and a park ranger. "The canyon is closed and we are evacuting the Scout Camp now. No way up ma'am." He didn't seemed alarmed my daughter was up there...without me! They said that Blackhawk and Payson Lakes campgrounds were not in jeopardy at the moment and they were leaving the campers there. Knowing it may take hours or days to get the fire under control, we turned the van around and drove our jello salad home. I can tell you, it was the strangest feeling driving away from a mountian on fire, with my daughter on it! The next morning we got a call from a very tired Sharee to let us know they too were evacuated at about midnight. They were allowed to throw everything in the trailer and got out the backside of the mountain. The crazy thing is, that until they were woke up that night, they did not even know anything about the fire. They knew something was odd as all the families that were to come up Friday night had never showed. Then oddly, around 9:00pm Laurie's husband Brent showed up at camp and they thought, oh well, he got up so everyone else must have just decided to not come.

Here's the cool part... When our friends had to be evacuated, some of them did not know if they had enough gas to go down the back way, so Norm decided they would all go down the mountain in groups of two. That way they could assist each other if they had trouble. As they went down the mountain, Brent, the one who had mysteriously got through and up the mountian, soon noticed the car he was paired up with had something leaking out the backend. They had severe transmission trouble. Coincidently Brent had a truck to tow them, he had the know how and the tools to fix it. Don't know how Brent got through to the campground that night. How he did not see the fire, the planes or the engines. How he was not stopped by a ranger. He hadn't seen anyone! He had got to the campground and knew nothing about a fire. But he was needed up there that night.....and someone made sure he made it! neenaneena neenaneena (twilight zone)!