4th Annual Texas YM Camping Trip Recap

The 4^th Annual ASCE Texas Section Younger Member Camping Trip took place at Pace Bend Park in Austin, Texas on October 18-20 , 2019. This year, there were 22 ASCE Texas Section Younger Members who came together from Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and the Rio Grande Valley area to camp, hike, network, share stories, and learn about what other young professionals are doing across the state of Texas.

The weekend event started out on Friday evening with everyone driving in from across the state. We set up up camp, pitched tents, and began conversations. With the forecast looking bright and cool all weekend, campers expected to have a great time enjoying the weather, hiking and doing water activities.

The weekend menu was put together by the camping trip organizers organizers. Friday evening campers were served with pulled pork tacos, chicken tacos, and tofu tacos for dinner. During dinner, everyone got together in a circle around a pop-up tent chatting and getting to know each other. The campers went around introducing themselves and shared stories about how they were involved in their local ASCE Branch. As the night falls, temperature started falling. A cool night breeze swooped in, and people started settling in their tents and sleeping bags to rest peacefully for the night.

Saturday morning started off with breakfast prepared at the campsite. Campers enjoyed a make-your-own-omelet station, where they could fill in a freezer bag with eggs and toppings to make omelet in a bag cooked in a hot water pot. Overnight oats, fruits, coffee and snacks were set up for campers to have a hearty breakfast.

After breakfast, we all gathered our things and split up into 2 groups. One group set off on a rock-climbing trip at a neighboring park, and the other group hiked through the wonderful trails of Pace Bend Park. As we walked along the hiking trails, we saw many types of vegetation and scenery as well as the coves of Lake Travis. After a long morning exercise, the campers built up an appetite and headed back to the campsite for delicious turkey, ham, vegetarian deli sandwiches, snacks and refreshing beverages. After lunch, some campers decided to take a shower and light afternoon naps at their tents and hammocks before proceeding to do water activities near Baldwin Cove.

After an eventful Saturday, campers joined together to cook dinner for everyone. One camper brought a smoker, and the cooking began. A couple of teams were split up cooking burger patties and hotdogs for the main course of the night. There was some pulled pork leftover from last night, so people were customizing their burgers with additional pulled pork topping goodness. Once dinner was adjourned, everyone could not wait for s’mores around the campfire, finding themselves sharing stories and discussing all the great things that Section YMs are doing. However, due to the burn ban that was going on in Austin at the time, we had to extinguish our campfire prematurely at about 9pm.

After a full weekend of events and mingling, campers shared a final breakfast Sunday morning and then packed up camp and went their separate ways back home. All are looking forward to getting back together again in the future to continue this great tradition and build on it for the years to come.

Keep a look out for news about future Texas YM events to come in 2020!