In a sign of the winter approaching, the Michigan Department of Transportation is preparing to shut down its roadside parks for the season.

MDOT’s Dan Weingarten tells us the state’s roadside parks are small areas off the beaten path where drivers can take a break. The state maintains 85 of them, and most will close down for the winter on October 31.

“Roadside parks are rustic facilities,” Weingarten said. “These are not the Welcome Centers or the rest areas with enclosed buildings and modern plumbing and vending machines and things like that. These are the more rustic facilities, most of them with pit toilets, some with running water, and they’re usually located in scenic areas in the rural parts of our state.”

Weingarten says because the roadside parks often have primitive accommodations, the water is prone to freezing during the winter if it’s not shut off.

Only a handful of the state’s roadside parks will remain open after October 31, and that includes the one roadside park in Southwest Michigan. That’s the Artesian Flow park at 2031 M-140, about two and a half miles south of Watervliet. That one stays open all year. The only other one that stays open all year is in Tuscola County.

You can learn more about the state’s roadside parks right here.