A New Lifestyle at a Riverside Campground

Sheila Cook and her husband, James, purchased Gasconade Hills Resort in Richland, Missouri, in 2021.

“My husband served in the U.S. Air Force for more than 20 years before he retired. We lived in California, and I worked in the public sector in health care. When he retired, he also worked in health care. We both did that for about 10 years or so,” Sheila says. “After COVID, we decided to sell everything and buy a campground. So, that’s what we did. We moved to Missouri in 2021.”

The funny thing is, Sheila had a list, and Missouri wasn’t on it.

“We did have a list. I’m very analytical. I had all the data points. Missouri wasn’t on the list because of weather factors [and] family proximity, and we were looking for a Southwest location instead of Midwest,” she says. “I stumbled across this one and fell in love with the pictures and the history. We thought we’d go out and look at it. We visited in October 2020 and fell in love with it. We put an offer in, and now we live here year-round on the property.”

The first year, Sheila and James worked to get the infrastructure built back up. Although she says it was a fully functioning and thriving business, there was a lot of wear and tear.

“We redid the well, emptied and cleaned the septic and put up a Wi-Fi tower,” she says. “The second year, we started to update the cabins, doubled our RV sites and added glamping tents. Then we purchased more boats and fishing kayaks that are pretty popular. The third year, we continued to add those amenities and improvements.”

Sheila says they’ve increased their efforts in branding and marketing and are continuing to work to boost service. Electrical improvements and cabin improvements are ongoing.

The couple experienced a setback on April 1 this year when the campground was hit with a very severe storm.

“We lost one of our historic cabins and another has been severely damaged. It took out all the new power lines and the new RV lines,” she says. “It accelerated our timeline for doing the rewiring. We lost about 60 trees. Because of the storm, that’s been our big focus since April.”

The campground has been open, and Sheila says they haven’t lost any business over the storm damage. While setbacks like this may have closed other campgrounds for repairs, Sheila says James’ background in the military as a flight engineer has allowed them to overcome challenges.

“He has lots of tactical background that he brings to the campground. From the military, he’s used to being resourceful, having ingenuity and working in a fast-paced environment. The fact that he can fix anything and everything has proved critical to us. He’s a jack-of-all-trades,” she says.

The couple was featured in an article by The Dyrt, an app for camping information and booking, which reported that 14.8% of campers are veterans or active military. In addition, another survey by the company found that 13.4% of property owners in the camping industry across the United States had served or currently serve in the military.

Even while working to repair damage from the storm, the couple is still looking forward to continuing to improve amenities.

“We plan to add some additional cabins and glamping tents. We’re about maxed out as to what we can add for lodging,” she says. “As for amenity additions, we plan to update the pool and playground equipment. We bought goats and opened a petting zoo park, and we want to add to that. We bought some new outdoor games and want to add more games like giant checkers.”

The campground already has amenities such as a convenience store and visitor information center, EV charging stations and an activity pavilion with basketball, volleyball, badminton and horseshoes. The campground is also dog friendly with a walk, run and waste stations.

Another major part of the campground’s business is float trips on the Gasconade River. The resort has access to the river and the campground offers various lengths for its float trips. Sheila says their most popular float trips are four and six miles long. During the float trip, guests can stop to eat, play and fish. There are even overnight floats from 10 to 20 miles long.

Guests can rent canoes with two or three seats, various kayaks, paddleboards, rafts for up to eight people and a shuttle for personal boats or tubes. There are cushions, paddles and life vests available for rental as well.

“We have a low, slow river that’s family-friendly and great for newer floaters. It’s not a party river. We try to stay true to that. We have great neighbors and want to be great neighbors to them as well,” Sheila says.

That goes hand in hand with the Cooks’ philosophy on customer service.

“Our philosophy for customer service is creating lasting and loving memories for families and friends that come here to enjoy the campground,” Sheila says. “We’re honored to be a part of that, and the amount of trust people put in us to do that.”

Located on the Gasconade River in the Ozark Mountains in Missouri, Gasconade Hills Resort features cabins, camper rentals, RV rentals, glamping, tent camping and RV sites for accommodations.

Activities include:

• Float trips on the river
• Pool
• Basketball
• Volleyball
• Badminton
• Horseshoes
• Playgrounds

And in addition to pet-friendly locations, there are grills and firepits, picnic areas, fishing and modern conveniences like a new Wi-Fi tower, new EV charging stations and an on-site convenience store.

As the campground’s website says, the site is a great location for “we-time.”

For more information about Gasconade Hills Resort, visit gasconadehills.com.