Orchard Beach State Park
Three fellow campers enjoy the sunset over Lake Michigan at Orchard Beach State Park.
Orchard Beach State Park no longer has an orchard or a beach, but it’s a real nice park that sits on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. We had a fantastic campsite. It wasn’t anything close to level, but it was just level enough that, with some careful parking, we didn’t have to break out the leveling boards or blocks. What’s great about our site is we can see the lake easily from it. I’m sitting on our picnic table and have a great view of the pre-dawn lake. Beautiful. And we don’t even have a front row seat. There’s a row of camping spaces between us and the lake. Even with them occupied, we get a decent view from ground level. It’s an even better view from our captain’s chairs.
During shoulder season, when we generally travel, a lot of state parks we go to, especially lake side ones, are full during the weekend and empty to emptyish during the week. Not so here, or Van Buren for that matter. Sunday was like a shift change here. Well over half the park left in the morning, with people coming to replace them in the afternoon.
Lions pavilion at First Street Beach where the Manistee River meets Lake Michigan in Manistee, MI
We spent Saturday morning checking out the town of Manistee, just a few minutes away by car. They have a downtown that looked like it might be good, but we didn’t spend much any time there. During our first drive though, nothing was going on. We went later in the morning and there was a small boat show blocking off a section of street. If we’re here again we’ll make a point of going back in the afternoon to see what downtown has to offer.
Boats come and go on the Manistee River behind Lions Pavilion.
What stood out about Manistee was its beach/ harbor access. It had a huge free parking area (there is a fee to use the boat ramp). Along the river, they have several places set up for groups to have fires (in a safe mesh enclosure) and Adirondak chairs. They appear to be freely available for the public.
Sunset over Lake Michigan as seen from our campsite.