The Memories Land Can Bring: Campbell Cove Campground
I faintly recall the hesitation we had the first time we pulled up to the campgrounds almost a decade ago. Campbell Cove Campgrounds on Lake Logan State Park took our breath away when we got the views of our camping spot options.
It was that same feeling you get on the first day of school or traveling to a place you have never been before. After all we would be spending the next 48 hours here including two nights sleeping on the ground. It wasn’t a feeling that it wouldn’t be great but rather just a feeling of newness and nervousness mixed in one.
Little did we know this we would come back here again and again multiple times per year. By my not so perfect calculations my wife and I have spent between 30 and 40 nights at Campbell Cove since discovering it the year we got married.
We have celebrated our anniversary, 4th of July, the end of her work season, a loss of my job (yes it was kind of a celebration to be honest), and my wife’s birthday here, brought friends here, made new friends with the family whose parents started this site in the 1970’s, and other campers who have stayed here with us, and we have come so often that the site right on the water is referred to by my wife as “Jill’s spot.” As in she prefers to have me reserve “Jill’s spot” over all the other camping site options.
That’s the beauty of land. It can bring fond memories and a constant reminder of the joys, ups, and downs in life that will give us conversations and feeling for our entire lifetime.
For us Campbell Cove Campground is that piece of land that brought us together and gave us more than we could ever ask for in return!
Campbell Cove is located just outside of Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio on Lake Logan (a different state park.) It’s about forty-five minutes from our house to this grove where it takes about five minutes to get back to from the road entrance.
Why is that? Well even though it’s only a few football fields the Campbell family’s rule is 2MPH!
They want to keep noise pollution down and kids safe! You are always greeted by a member of the Campbell family when you enter the site.
Firewood is a bargain, the tent site views are spectacular, and they have 50 seasonal RV sites that see the same family’s coming year after year.
Above was site 58, aka, Jill’s camping spot at Lake Logan.
We’d have to reserve this well in advance for holiday weekends. Lew the owner told us that the 4th of July we could never stay in it because a gentlemen with a standing reservation of over twenty years coming there always has first dibs!
Why have I never written about Campbell Cove until now? Well my wife always joked that she wanted to keep it as the best camping secret in the Midwest. I wasn’t supposed to be promoting it; and if I did I certainly had to tell everyone she had first dibs on “Jill’s spot.”
After a few years of back and forth though the Campbell family decided to sell the land at an auction one September. I’m very happy for them and grateful for all of the nights we have gotten to spend on the land their parents turned into something so special and memorable over four decades ago!
While it’s not the end of the campsite, the land will stay as a campsite, I felt it was a fitting time to share the legend that has become the Campbell Cove Campground for us.
We may or may not camp here again and perhaps they won’t even change the name. But the family who enabled us to create these amazing memories on this land will be staying here just like us now instead of being in charge of it.
The campground does look very different but the name has stayed, check it out HERE.
The Lake Logan Marina is a great place to rent a kayak and take a paddle out on Lake Logan, especially into areas like this one where the pontoon boats can’t go!
From coffee and egg pancake breakfasts with fresh blueberries in the morning to hikes in the region to mini golf to marathon training runs to long afternoons reading books to late nights with campfires and too many drinks. You name it we have the memories from hanging out at “Jill’s spot” over the years.
This is the special feeling that land can invoke in people and that the outdoors and nature can give to you. A true feeling of euphoria and gratitude for the planet that we are fortunate enough to call home.
This was the view from the grove on a filled to the brim Memorial Day Weekend (our chosen place to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary.)
The Campbell’s may be moving on as owners of this special land but I hope the memories that it will bring us, them, and all the attendees of this RV/Camping site continue and are passed on to future generation after future generation.
Value the special places in the outdoors and mother nature that bring you such joy. You never know when they might fade away. I personally feel fortunate the new owner will continue in the same tradition of letting me sleep on this beautiful ground that Joe and Marjorie Campbell started back in the 1970’s and their kids and grandkids (special SO to Lew!) continued and allowed us the pleasure to experience with them since 2011.
Pinecone on a massive tree that our friend Lew Campbell helped plant as a child on this ground.
What’s your feeling on what type of memories can be evoked from a special piece of land? Do you have a place in this world that makes you feel like we feel about Campbell Cove in Hocking Hills Ohio?
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Because Adventure Feeds the Soul,
Mike R and the #Hashtag59 Team