@hulakov WOW!!! THANK YOU!!! Those three build_flags were the trick. I only needed to include esp_log.h and did not need to include esp32-hal-log.h
but can someone explain why these three build_flags are the trick? (especially the last one) Having a solution is great but learning why it works would be even better.
-DUSE_ESP_IDF_LOG
-DCORE_DEBUG_LEVEL=5
-DTAG="\"ARDUINO\""