Harrison Lake - June 2014

A weekend without camping?  How can that be?  On Wednesday, I booked a trip for the weekend to Harrison Lake State Park.  There wasn't an overabundance of campsites available when I booked, but there WERE sites available.

Previously, I'd written a post about Harrison Lake, thinking we'd not make a trip there this year.  I really think this is a hidden camping gem, so close to home.
Big campsites - check
Quiet - check
Nature-y activities - check
Fishing - check
Swimming - check

Decent shower house - check (the buildings with just toilets and sinks aren't anything to write home about, but you're not spending much time in there)
Organized kid activities - check
Playgrounds - check
Electric sites - check

Our campsite, Site 77, wasn't the biggest at the campground, but booking only 2 days out, it was nothing to sneeze at.  One of the best - BEST - things about Harrison Lake is that most of the campsites are large.  Making them even larger, there is a TON of space behind the campsites, between the sites on the next campground road.  We had a drainage ditch behind our site, which really limited the use of that space behind our campsite, but Oldest Kid still found a way to utilize the space.

Want to go fishing?  Youngest Kid caught an impressive number of Blue Gill and Sunfish.  Want to go swimming?  The park staff makes sure to tend the beach so you're not dodging goose poop.    Want to talk to your kids about the advantages of having a dam and what it does for the wildlife?  You can do that, too.

There's a neat little walking bridge that connects the North Campground to the dams and to the swimming area and to the South Campground.

Both the staff and the Friends of Harrison Lake State Park are great about putting on programs for park visitors.  Last year's visit, there was a bike rally and all the kids got free bike helmets.  This year, there was an ice cream social.  There are free crafts every weekend we're there during the summer.

While I was on my run Saturday morning, the dog and I went over to the other campground.  As we were making our way back, there was a crane standing on the dam.  I got a picture.  As we made our way closer, I tried to get another picture and the crane decided to not hang around a person and a dog (can't really blame it).  It was a neat moment and my kids enjoyed seeing my pictures.

It was a dam good morning to crane my neck - haha, I'm so punny.

I served the Strawberry Bread and Strawberry Butter to our friends that camped with us and earned rave reviews.  It's still strawberry season around these parts and you have the opportunity to pick your own strawberries to make your own yumminess.

It was a great weekend.  A little bit of rain, but it didn't dampen (get it? another pun!) our weekend at all.  Lots of bike riding and games.  It's time together, and I'm always happy with that.

Harrison Lake State Park

While we don't have Harrison Lake State Park scheduled for a trip yet in 2014, we typically make it there 1-2 times a camping season.  My main goal for this blog is to keep track of where we've been and what we liked about each place.  I figure, why not back track a bit?

One of the great things we like about Harrison Lake is that it's only an hour away, straight down U.S. 127, just across the Ohio boarder.  That hour makes a difference in the weather.  It can be cold and crummy at home, but sunny and lovely there.

A drawback to Harrison Lake is that it's a state park in the middle of a bunch of farm fields.  Sight-seeing outside of the park doesn't bring a whole lot of excitement.  Unless you really like farm fields.  The bright side to the farm fields is that watching the sun rise over the fields, with a barn off in the distance, is quite picturesque and gives you warm fuzzies about the heartland of America.

I'm a fan of cul-de-sac sites and there are 4 cul-de-sacs to choose from.  Cul-de-sacs offer bigger campsites and the kids can ride their bikes & scooters, play games, toss a ball, whatever they want in the road with minimal problems of car traffic.  The sites at Harrison Lake are generous to begin with, but the cul-de-sac sites are some of the biggest we've ever camped on.

We always take our bikes with us.  We'll ride our bikes over to the beach area & play on the play ground there.  We go and appreciate the views of the lake.  We climb to the top of the dam and go down to the bottom just to climb back up again.  We ride along the ridge over to the non-electric campsites and loop around there.  We ride up to the camp store where you check in.

On our trip to Harrison Lake last year, we just happened to be there when they were having a bike safety rally.  It was a great little experience for the kids with a road rally for them to maneuver through and all kids got a new bike helmet.

There is a lovely place to fish on the lake, near the entrance of the park.  We're not often successful, but that's why they don't call it catching.

Harrison Lake is a great place to camp when you want to camp for the sake of camping, to enjoy the moment of camping.  It is not a location to go and experience more outside of the park.

Word to the wise, when plugging the address into your GPS, it takes you to a place in the park that does not allow you to get into the campground, at least in the past.  You can see the campground, it's *right* there, but you can't get into the campground.  You need to use the entrance near Camp Palmer.  I just searched the address and it seems that they've fixed the location on the map.  Every trip since we attempted to go to the wrong place, we've seen plenty of other campers doing the exact same turn-around that we did.  We giggle because we're not alone in our defiant, "But the GPS says...!"