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Beach Day 1,000 Miles From the Ocean




I'm not totally sure what I was expecting out of a beach day to a Great Lake. I did remember flying over Lake Michigan on the way into the city, and how eerie it felt. The water seemed to wobble, but it didn't quite roll in the way I'm used to from oceans. There was a layer of what I think was fog sitting on the surface, but also may have been cloud. It was pretty, but it felt slightly wrong.

I definitely hadn't expected the sand. I'm not sure if it's naturally that way or if it's something Chicago did on purpose, but the shore next to the water is sandy in a way not dissimilar to a beach back home in New Hampshire. The lake also had waves, not as big or rough as we see in the Atlantic, but certainly larger than I'm used to seeing from a lake. It reminded me more of the Caribbean Sea just looking at it. According to the totally reliable research method of skimming the first page of Google results without actually clicking on or reading anything, the only real difference between a sea and a Great Lake is the salt content. The cold was nothing like the Caribbean Sea. The water in Lake Michigan was freezing, far colder than I expected. It was colder even than I remember the Atlantic being. It felt like dipping your toes in a bucket of ice water.

Ellie laughed at my reaction to the cold water, which I feel is fair, because I'd blustered forward with the confidence that my experience with the Atlantic meant the temperature she warned me about would be nothing. I was a fool. Still, we soldiered on together through the cold water until we were deep enough for me to take my first dive in a Great Lake. Ellie and I high fived about it, then froze. In her enthusiasm to celebrate with me, Ellie accidentally stabbed her way into a bloody nose with her nose piercing. Her face looked like a crime scene. Luckily, we had a lake's worth of water to wash away the evidence with.

Water conditions changed while we were in the lake. When we first got there, lifeguards had green flags sticking out of their chairs to indicate good swimming conditions. While we were in the water, the flags changed to red. I panicked a little, and asked Ellie what that meant and if we had to get out. She said it just meant that conditions were choppy, but it wasn't bad enough we had to get out. I couldn't help but laugh a little bit. Here, at least, my coastal bluster had been warranted. "Choppy" looked more like a calm day in the Atlantic.

Eventually we got cold enough that it was time to leave. We got out, gathered out things, and washed the sand off as best we could. We had biked to the lake, because Ellie enjoys the ride and Julie was kind enough to lend me her bike, and Ellie and I had a sunset ride back to her house.

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