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| Downtown Lake Orion |
Michigan has so many great towns to visit for a weekend, a day trip, or even an afternoon. In Metro Detroit, there are a lot of walkable downtowns with restaurants and shopping, but not many of them are within a short walk to a lake.
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| A dragon guarding the art center |
Lake Orion in northeast Oakland County feels like a small resort town that you might find Up North, but it is only 45 minutes north of Detroit. The town actually served as a vacation destination for people from Detroit and beyond in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and
it even had an amusement park. The lake and
a public park (a park pass is required during the summer) with a swimming beach are only a few blocks from the downtown.
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| Public art near Paint Creek |
My family and I visited Lake Orion on a Saturday afternoon and parked in a free public lot between Broadway and Anderson streets. There is also ample and free street parking throughout the downtown, but the street spots have a two-hour limit, unlike the 23-hour limit of the public lot.
