78 Michigan Parks: Orchard Beach State Park #38

Now that all of my children are in middle school and above, I am making a pointed effort to schedule as many appointments outside of school as possible.  In this case, that meant going in for a scan the day after we returned from camping!

Avia and Emily both came along for the adventure, but they ventured out to go thrift store shopping and use some of the summer reading prizes, from Cane's, while we had the scans completed.

Once upon a time, the kids would do the entire bridge during these appointments, but they are so tall now, it's much harder for them!

The technicians were awesome, and were able to overlap appointments, so as soon as William finished up with ultrasound, he was off to x-ray! Next up was Grace, and once Juliet headed to x-ray we sent Avia a message that we were almost ready!

Since the appointments were faster than planned, they were not nearby, and we had to entertain ourselves.

We found a nice patio/balcony with tables and a view, where we enjoyed our snacks.

A Lutheran Church with a German inscription, in Grand Rapids!

Sadly, we had more time than snack, so we went inside to check out the play area.  My children might have been just a bit too tall for it!

After we passed through Muskegon, we found a rest stop, where Emily took over the driving.  She drove us on the highway until we stopped at the scenic overlook near Ludington.

I'm not sure if there is a view of something in particular during winter months, but mostly we were looking at a giant gorge and treetops.  In theory, you are facing Lake Michigan, but we couldn't see it on the day we visited.

The walking path that led back to the rest area looked really pleasant though!

On our way to the state park, we found the most commercialized farm stand that I'd ever stopped into.  We all picked out some treats to snack on!  William was hunting for food this entire trip, he must be growing!  Billy probably ended up with the most treats, since we found him a cherry crisp, cherry cream cheese pie, and cherry sour candies!

We finally made it to the state park!  Despite being named Orchard Beach, it has no beach access.  It's rather like Baraga State Park, in that it is mostly a campground, with pretty views.

It looks like once upon a time it did go down to the beach!!!

There was a small 'wooded' area that had a path that we took back to the car, where we found a very fun tree.  Emily used the 'shoe tying branch' to tie up the laces on her crocs. ; )

It looks like someone just threw Juliet into the tree!

Grace 'hanging around.'

The campers who were around seemed happy!

I sent Haley a makeshift postcard from this postbox.  We'll see if it ever arrives!  (I'll try to update here if it does, but as of 8-30-26, it hadn't arrived.)

Where we were in the state.

I had done the most basic of research, where I learned that there was no beach access at Orchard Beach state park, and found a few back up plans!

later days

edit 8-30-26: backdated for continuity. 

 A list of our previous visits:

Fort Wilkins Historic State Park #1
FJ McLain State Park #2
Twin Lakes State Park #3
Baraga State Park #4
Craig Lake State Park #5
Van Ripper State Park #6
Bewabic State Park #9
JW Wells State Park #10

Palms Book State Park #12

Indian Lake State Park #13
Muskallonge State Park #14
Tahquamenon Falls #15 (round 2!)
Brimley State Park #16
Straits State Park #17
Keith J Charters #33
Sleeper State Park #46
Port Crescent State Park #47
Silver Lake State Park #49
Muskegon State Park #50*
Newaygo State Park #51
PJ Hoffmaster State Park #52
Grand Haven State Park #53
Ionia State Park #54
Sleepy Hollow State Park #55
Metamora-Hadley Recreation Area #56
Lake Port State Park #57
Seven Lakes State Park #58
Holly Recreation Area #59
Algonac #60
Holland State Park #61
Island Park State Recreation Area #63b
Highland Recreation Area #64b
Pontiac Lake Recreation Area #65
Dodge #4 State Park #66a
Bald Mountain State Recreation Area #66b
Maybury State Park #67
Saugatuck Dunes State Park #68
Fort Custer Recreation Area #69
Waterloo Recreation Area #70a
Pickney State Recreation Area #70b
WJ Hays State Park #71
Belle Isle Park #72
Van Buren State Park #73
Grand Mere State Park #74
Warren Dunes State Park #75a
Warren Woods State Park #75b
Lake Hudson Recreation Area #77
Sterling State Park #78
Port Austin State Harbor #Bonus 1
Kal-Haven State Park #Bonus 2
Wagner Falls #Bonus 3
Laughing Whitefish Falls State Park #Bonus 4
Yankee Springs #Fail

Jellystone!!!

Our third vacation of the summer was at the start of August!  We made the relatively short drive to Indiana, and stayed at Barton Lake for the first time in years!

On night one, we settle in and have pizza for dinner!  We were a little nervous, because we were getting light rain, with forecasted rain for the remainder of our trip!!!

The kids got some kinetic sand from somewhere, but it is a contraband item for me, so it had to stay outside!  The kids enjoyed on the porch for the duration of our stay though!

We enjoyed checking out the new installations, one of which was a giant lite-brite!

Sticky hand battle!  You have to use a sticky hand to capture a quarter.  They divided the contestants by age, and then into small groups.  William and I both made it to the finals, but neither of us were victorious. = (

During a break in the rain, the girls wanted to go check out something that wasn't of interest to William, so he and I walked around to see if we could find a good place for him to use his fishing net.

They really didn't have anywhere for him to toss it into the depths!  Fishing wasn't allowed on the bridges or docks!  We played a round of cornhole near the ranger's station.  William was ahead by 7 points, but I ended up making a comeback and winning the game.

Every time I looked at the horizon, toward the sunset, it was prettier and prettier!

We were playing with the Frisby toy that he brought, and he tried to use a bean bag to knock it from the tree, which ended up getting the bag stuck in yogi's hat.  So, he had to use a handy oar to knock both of them down!

Day 2 was not rainy!  We woke up to sunshine, and were out the door early so that the kids could maximize swimming!  Friday was our cabana day, but when we went looking, the cabanas had not been labelled, which meant that I had to call to get our assignment.  

We ended up at the pool nearest our cabin, because it's the one that the kids were most excited about.

Later, when Billy joined us, we moved to the cabana, which finally had our name on it!  The cabana was in the newest area that opened earlier this summer, and had a fan and a refrigerator!  We even watched a bit of M*A*S*H after logging into Hulu.

The kids did enjoy the splash area for a while, but then they wanted to go check out the big waterslides!

Each of them did the straight drop, but William was the most visible in his bright green shirt!

Around 2, Billy and I tried to get charcoal from the ranger's station, but sadly, they were sold out.  I ended up going on an off campus run to get charcoal.  It wasn't far, but it wasn't fun.  Had I thought about it, one of the girls could have driven the return trip!  While out, I also had to source some worms for Emily.*  Luckily, we were close to lots of lakes, so there was a shop nearby the Dollar General I ended up at.

We were not impressed with our check in or the state of our cottage upon arrival, but I wanted to document the number, for future reference.

On my return trip, I found one of the letter signs that Alice needed for her scavenger hunt!  It was way out of the way, and was just the letter she needed to crack the code!

Billy had to rush cooking dinner, because Candy Bar Bingo started at 7.  It was the saddest of news that they no longer allow outside candy bars (but we never found out the reason) so you had to buy a candy bar from them (at $2/piece) to play.  = (  We paid the money for each of us to get two boards, but it definitely dampened my mood for the experience.

Because of the rain forecast, the tickets to the light wagon were free, so Alice signed up all five of the kids to go on the ride!  We brought lots of glowy items with us, so it was truly free!  As a side note, Alice is not in many of the pictures, because she didn't want to swim.  She attended practically every free event that they offered though!  So, she stayed busy, we just didn't see much of her.

The next day, we started out with Smores!  With the threat of rain still looming, the kids were worried that we would end up bringing home our ingredients again, so we took the opportunity to make them at the beginning of the day!

Next, they swam for a while in the same pool as the day before, but the seats were full!  After a while, we decided to try the indoor pool.  It was a steamy room, so Billy and I sat just outside the door on the deck, in direct view of the kids, but they said that the water was cold in this pool.

After the rush for dinner the night before, there was no time for the chicken, so Billy cooked it up for dinner on night 3.  Emily had an AP Biology assignment due the day after we got back from our trip, so she had to do her worm experiment while we were on vacation.*  Surprisingly, she actually needed this picture for her lab, because they had to include a picture of them doing the experiment!  She was panicked, because we couldn't even recreate it, since we'd tossed the boxes at the campground, but I love taking pictures of my babies!

Once the chicken was cooked, we headed over to the paddle boats!  Even Alice joined us for this outing.

Sunset on our final night.  It was pretty and serene, but it's always sad to be at the end of a vacation.

We had to be out of the cabin by 11, and we were!  In fact, we even had time after loading up to go take some pictures with the Yogi statue!

And a picture from 2019, at the same statue!

Within 5 minutes of pulling into our driveway, I had a load of laundry in the washer, and it still took me 5 days to get on top of it (since we had a day trip to some state parks in the pinky, which created another couple of loads.)

Alice is always at her best when we go to Jellystone, and I think everyone got to do everything that they wanted to do!  We do love Jellystone camping!

later days

 *She did try to dig up worms the week leading up to our trip, but it was too late in the season, and we couldn't find any!

edit 8-30-26: backdated for continuity.