It’s near Bay City, Michigan, but even so Bay City State Park strikes me as a misnomer. It isn’t that near, for one thing — you have drive some miles to reach the edge of the city. Saginaw Bay State Park would be better, because that’s the salient feature of the park.

Though it’s a bit of a walk to take in the view. That’s what we did last Sunday morning.
Worth it.
“Bay City State Park, situated on the shores of the Saginaw Bay, is home to one of the largest remaining freshwater, coastal wetlands on the Great Lakes, the Tobico Marsh,” the Michigan DNR says. “More than a thousand feet of sandy beach and over 2,000 acres of wetland woods, wet meadows, cattail marshlands and oak savannah prairies make it an ideal staging area for migratory birds.”

We spent time on the beach, but also walked around the nearby lagoon, which took the better part of an hour.
The air was neither hot nor cold, no mosquitoes bothered us — hard to believe, considering some of our mosquito experiences in Michigan — and the place wasn’t crowded at all, even though it was Labor Day weekend. The dog was happy to sniff along but didn’t pull too hard. Occasionally we’d hear a motor in the distance, but the hum of traffic you hear from every direction in the suburbs wasn’t there. Birds, bugs and wind are most of what you hear in a place like that, if you leave your noisemaking gizmos behind.

Even better than all that, we’d come some distance to be there. That seasoned the experience for the better. All in all, a near perfect walk.