Thorne Swift & the Dune Woods — a stop on the Tunnel of Trees.
Watch for the turn to Thorne Swift Nature Preserve on your left — a small preserve with boardwalk trails running down through the dune forest to the beach, and it is the easiest way on this whole road to actually get down to the water.
It is a short walk, mostly boardwalk, and it takes you through a cross-section of everything that grows on a Lake Michigan shore in about ten minutes: mature beech-maple woods at the top, then the transition as the soil gets sandier and the trees get shorter and more twisted, then dune grass, then beach.
Look for the trees near the exposed edge. Constant wind off the lake prunes them — they grow lopsided, all their branches streaming inland, sculpted by salt-free but relentless air. And in spring the woods here fill with trillium and trout lily before the canopy closes over.
There is an interpretive centre in season and a naturalist who will happily tell you what is flowering. Modest entry fee, worth it.
If you only get out of the car once between here and Cross Village, this is a strong candidate — mainly because the beach at the bottom is usually empty, which on this coast in August is close to a miracle.