The Great Lakes feed into the Atlantic, so half the Midwest should be blue
Jesse: Michigan is a landlocked state.
Walter: The Great Lakes State?
Jesse: I mean, sure it is made up of two peninsulas and a bunch of islands,
And it has more coastline than Hawaii,
And the Great Lakes feed into the ocean through the St Lawrence Seaway,
And millions of tonnes of cargo pass through the Great Lakes each year on oceangoing vessels.
But it technically does not have a border touching the ocean. That means it’s landlocked.
Walter: Jesse, WTF are you talking about?
It’s not just the Great Lakes. We had to build canals to make those navigable. The excessive network of navigable rivers, and barrier islands that connect Corpus Christi, TX with Baltimore, MD, should make everything east of The Mississippi River blue, and most of the western half of the Continental states are within a couple hundred miles of a naturally navigable river. We may have more naturally navigable rivers than the rest of the world combined.
I feel like the Great Lakes should count for something.
Landlocked, as an economic term, often implies a lack of major shipping ports. (The negative connotation of the term is arguably mainly from the higher prices for everything that has to be shipped in.)
For anyone expecting the economic definition (the more useful one) of “land locked”, this map doesn’t help, because the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River allow massive thriving sea ports for ocean going vessels - in states adjacent to them.
Edit: A map updated for major shipping ports would also be funnier, since Nebraska is extra fucked, in comparison. Although, there’s no border taxes between the states, so the economic disadvantage of being land locked is also drastically reduced, for Nebraska, compared to the usual meaning.
This may come as a surprise to some but as of right now, people from Nebraska can travel to the coast without any restrictions. Don’t know what it’ll be like next year, though.
Does that only apply as long as the person isn’t pregnant, or possibly cannot be pregnant?
It’s weird to think about that there’s people who live so far inland that they’ve never seen a beach with their own eyes
I mean… Lakes exist, so there’s beaches. Of course, there are differences between ocean and lake beaches (silly song)
But yeah, it’s normal for seeing the ocean for the first time to be a big life event, in these states.
Plus what that means for diet-- nowadays transportation is a bit faster but I met a guy from the midwest talking about how 30-40 years ago they didn’t really see much fish if it wasn’t frozen and fried.
In the US, the vast majority of all commercially available seafood has been frozen. You are just paying a defrosting fee for the more expensive “fresh fish” in the display case at the market.
I knew all fish for raw consumption had to be frozen but I didn’t realize most other fish was as well. Either way, this dude was saying he pretty much only saw fish sticks growing up.
There are occasionally American shows that address this, both serious and comically, and it’s always crazy how people are stunned by beaches and the ocean.
That said I live in a country of which half the border is a coastline and half of the land is below sealevel. But still, it seems so normal to have been to a beach at least several times in a lifetime, even if it’s distant. For me it’s the reverse with mountains and rough terrain though, everything is flat here.
Yeah, but having done both, it’s equally weird that people can just…go to the beach? Without making it a whole week trip! But then they can’t just go to a farm for fresh cheese and eggs on a Thursday afternoon?
I’m not sure how the presence of an ocean would negate the existence of farms in the area
