People who live in other parts of the country--hell, people who live in other parts of Ohio--have no notion of what our Great Lakes are really about. They have no sense of their size, scale and influence.
When you tell people in central Pennsylvania you live about 15 miles from the shore of Lake Erie, they say, oh, that's nice, and move on to other things. They hear lake and they think it's something just a bit bigger than a pond, which is, after all, the definition of a lake.
Their eyes get big when you tell them you can't see land from the middle of Lake Erie, that the Great Lakes are 20% of the world's fresh surface water, 90% of the country's. The coup de grace is when you tell 'em if we pulled the plug on the Great Lakes, the entire Lower 48 would be under nearly 10 feet of water. That kinda gets and keeps their attention.
English is the most descriptive and precise language in the world, yet it does not have a word that accurately describes the Great Lakes.
Ocean would not be appropriate because by definition it is both vast and salt water. The vast pretty much applies, but not the salt part. We do have tides--seiche--like the oceans, but they're strictly wind-driven. They can be impressive on Lake Erie under the right conditions, but we don't have any Bay of Fundy sort of rise and fall.
I'm thinking about the Great Lakes today because we're having another bout of lake-effect snow in Lorain County. It's not unheard of here, but it's far more rare than on the east side of Cleveland in Ohio's snowbelt, where lake-effect pushes the yearly snowfall total upwards of the 120" mark (for those of you at home, that's 10 feet).
Anytime the wind is out of the north or slightly NNW, we get hit. The snowbelt gets slammed from nearly any compass point from WNW to NNE. Technically, we're in the secondary snowbelt.
So that part of living next to Lake Erie kinda sucks, but there are good points. The growing season is longer here than most areas at this latitude, thanks to the lake. Drive around the southern shore of Lake Erie and you'll see numerous vineyards and fruit orchards, even a dozen miles inland.
We also get our drinking water from Lake Erie, so no drought of any length has any impact on our water supply. That's one of the reasons why these Federal laws requiring low-flow showerheads and crappy little toilets make no rational sense. Beyond the fact that the Federal government has no business meddling in these areas, there's no way we can ever run out of fresh water here so why do we have to live under the same rules as people in Arizona? If ever there were an issue that should be solely the purview of state and local government, this is one of them.
The mere existence of Lake Erie also provides us with terrific birdwatching opportunities a couple times a year. During the spring and autumn migrations, millions of birds have to cross the lake. Where most of them cross, the shortest hop is 35 miles of open water. So they pile up along the Ohio shoreline in the spring to feed and rest before making the hop over the lake.
The best place to see up to 300 species of birds is the Magee Marsh Wildlife Refuge, between Toledo and Port Clinton. The state built a boardwalk through the marsh there and if you hit it at the right time, the warblers and other birds are literally dripping from the trees. Many of them are surprisingly tame and you'll probably never get a better up close and personal look at them.
I guess you have to take the bad with the good, but when I was out clearing 5 inches of bad off the driveway today, I wasn't nearly so willing. Now that I've thought about it in the warmth of my home, I guess I can live with it.
One footnote, the Cooper's hawk was back again today, this time sitting big and bold in the oak tree above the suet feeders. Managed to get the camera on him this time, but couldn't get proper focus. I hate all this modern technology. Why do I need the camera to focus for me when I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself? I haven't even bothered to pop the memory card to check it, because I know the shots will be out of focus. I need to get the manual out again, I suppose. I never had to use a manual the size of the OED to get good pix with my 35mm SLRs.
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