The Best Seat on the Lake — a stop on the Tunnel of Trees.
If your timing allows it at all, arrange to be at the north end of this road in the evening, because this shore has a genuine claim to the best sunsets in the eastern United States.
It is geometry. You are on the east shore of a very large body of water, up on a bluff, facing due west with nothing between you and the horizon but three hundred miles of open lake. No far shore, no hills, no buildings. Almost nowhere east of the Rockies gets that.
Then it is the physics: moisture off the water and haze in the low air scatter the blue wavelengths out and leave the reds, which is why the colour deepens as the sun drops rather than fading.
And here is the local advice — do not leave when the sun goes down. The best part comes ten or fifteen minutes AFTER, when the light comes back up off the water and the whole sky behind you goes pink. People pack up and drive off right before the good bit, every single evening.
The gaps in the trees along this stretch work, the beach at Middle Village works, and the terrace behind the Legs Inn at Cross Village is about the best seat on this coast.
Bring a layer. The wind comes straight off cold water and the temperature falls fast once the sun is down.