::trixxie17

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This is an image of beautiful Lake Michigan taken in northern Wisconsin. In the foreground is a sea cave created by the waves pounding at the limestone for hundreds of years. Approximately 100 miles across from this spot would land you on the shores of Michigan near a lovely town called Charlevoix. Here's some facts on Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes gleaned from the Great Lakes Information Network and Wikipedia: Lake Michigan, is the second largest Great Lake by volume with just under 1,180 cubic miles of water. Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes wholly within the borders of the United States; the others are shared with Canada. It has a surface area of 22,400 square miles (58,000 km) making it the largest lake entirely within one country by surface area. (Lake Baikal, in Russia, is larger by water volume.) Approximately 118 miles wide and 307 miles long, Lake Michigan has more than 1,600 miles of shoreline. Averaging 279 feet in depth, the lake reaches 925 feet at its deepest point. The lake's northern tier is in the colder, less developed upper Great Lakes region, while its more temperate southern basin contains the Milwaukee and Chicago metropolitan areas. The drainage basin, includes portions of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Lake Michigan is hydrologically inseparable from Lake Huron, joined by the wide Straits of Mackinac. The Great Lakes are also connected by the Illinois Waterway to the Gulf of Mexico via the Illinois River and the Mississippi River. An alternate track is via the Illinois River (from Chicago), to the Mississippi, up the Ohio, and then through the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway (combination of a series of rivers and lakes and canals), to Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Commercial tug-and-barge traffic on these waterways is heavy. Pleasure boats can also enter or exit the Great Lakes by way of the Erie Canal and Hudson River in New York. The Erie Canal connects to the Great Lakes at the east end of Lake Erie (at Buffalo, NY) and at the south side of Lake Ontario (at Oswego, NY). This is my other possible entry for the contest.