A Busy Week!

What a week! The last seven days or so have been vital in moving us closer to our ultimate goal… Summer 2026!

Beth and I had a great Wednesday at Texas State University. We started the day in the classroom, where Beth served on a panel of camp professionals who held a Q&A session with students interested in going into recreational management. After that, we attended a job fair where we talked with multiple great candidates about coming to work here this summer. We also had the chance to catch up with former camper, counselor, and one of my assistant directors for this summer, Adam Wright.

Thursday morning was a big day. We announced it on social media, but finally… after eight months of working out of the dining hall, we moved back into our offices. It was a huge moment, and it feels amazing to be sitting at my desk, with the tennis courts on my right and the Guad on my left, typing out this blog. We still have a lot of work to do to make the office feel like home again, but the bulk of the move is behind us.

In addition to that, the installation of two new generators was completed on Thursday. After the flood, we lost power for five days. We had some small generators to run a few refrigerators and charge our phones, but many things didn’t work at all. We now have backup power to our store and office, so in the event of a power outage our phone system will still work throughout camp and our office will remain up and running to contact the outside world.

We also installed a larger generator below the infirmary that will power the dining hall, the infirmary, and the water well that supplies camp with all of its water during the summer. This will ensure that we can feed everyone if the power goes out, keep the infirmary fully operational, and provide water to the entire camp in the event of a prolonged outage. While these are just two big boxes that will eventually blend into the surroundings, they’ll provide an incredibly important service if they’re ever needed.

(Make sure you click next on that first picture, there are quite a few) Believe it or not, on that same day Rope Works finished their work on our updated climbing tower. We’ll no longer be able to run the elements that were down by the river, so Rope Works came out, looked at our climbing tower, and designed three new elements that our campers are going to absolutely love.

First, there’s a Giant Ladder built on the backside of the tower that will require teamwork to make the ascent. On the side facing camp, we’ve added a new Screamer (Swing). While campers won’t be able to look out over the river like they used to, when they take this swing they’ll be able to see over the trees and get an awesome view of the entirety of camp.

Then, on the side facing Ingram, there’s a suspension bridge that campers will have to walk across without using their hands. Once one camper gets up and across, another camper goes up, and they have to cross paths in the middle. It’s going to be a ton of fun. Several of these elements will also allow us to run two campers at the same time, which will help us move classes through much more quickly.

There have also been some great updates around camp that may not seem like much right now, but soon they’ll be very noticeable. We hydroseeded several areas down by the river and around the front gate. This is a great way to spread grass seed, and if we can keep it watered (come on, rain), we should have some more of Johnnie’s beautiful grass by the time camp rolls around.

We also installed some new poles down by the river that will hold our buddy board, RV Waterfront, and a new light pole.

We also had a blast on Sunday at our Campers and Friends Party. The weather turned out great and we had a wonderful group of Vista families, both old and new, out at camp. The highlight of the afternoon was watching kids run around the courts playing games together. For a little while, it sounded just like summer again, and that’s always a great feeling this time of year. A huge thank you to camp Mom and Vista Forever member Courtney Compton who commisioned local artist Callie Ann Stelter to paint this beautiful Vista picture that will hang in our office forever!

Monday afternoon and all day Tuesday were spent at CAMPference in San Antonio. Our very own Beth Rumbo wrapped up her four-year cycle serving on the board and finished her term as this year’s president. CAMPference is a gathering where camps from all across Texas come together to share ideas, listen to presentations, and meet vendors whose products help make camp safer, more fun, and help with many of the behind-the-scenes maintenance things that most people never see.

Today (3/4/26) we received a shipment from Austin with all the parts needed to replace our water slide and rope swing. While we still need to install everything, this is a huge step toward bringing the waterfront back to the great place it was before. We can’t wait to update you on the progress being made down there.

All of that said, it feels like every day we’re getting something done and moving closer to completion. Soon our staff will be here, and not long after that, our amazing campers.

We are seriously counting the days. Talk to you all soon.