Things Minnesota Does "Best": Most Lakes

According to a quick search, there are actually 11,842 lakes in the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", i.e. Minnesota. Holy mackerel! That's even more than the state prides itself on. How modest. You know what's even better than 11,842 lakes? An ocean. Things that oceans have include: swimmers, surfers, large gorgeous, white sand beaches, cruise ships, sharks and other forms of exotic sea life. Here's what Minnesota's lakes have to offer: about a 4-month period of time when they aren't frozen solid, zebra muscles, fecal contamination, dirt or grass beaches and small, uninteresting perciforms.

What's so great about having 10,000+ lakes in a single state? Are people suppose to flock from all corners of the globe to marvel at the large quantity of lakes we have? Are they suppose to visit each pointless little body of mud water and bask in it's splendor? Should they be at all impressed that Minnesota has so many of something that none of it's residents have anything to do with? No. It's another trivial thing that Minnesotans pat themselves on the back for as if coastal regions would trip over themselves to visit even ONE of the stupid Minnesota lakes.

The only lakes that even remotely matter are The Great Lakes - Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. However, these lakes aren't in Minnesota, only near it. Lake Superior boarders only a piece of the far Northern corner of the state. And the only reason that these lakes "matter" is because they're huge. Huge by lake standards, at least. As far as other lakes that Minnesota thinks makes them America's sweetheart... who cares? You can take your boat out on some of them during the aforementioned number of months in each year or sit in a frozen outhouse during the winter and fish through 6-feet of ice. Again, do they expect people to travel from Miami Beach to sit out on a frozen, blustery lake and drink Guinness?

As far as swimming, some lakes are swimmable, but they're never very pleasant to do so in. The lake beaches I've been to are usually virtually sandless and are no less than 7-feet from the parking lot. Aside from that, they're usually full of overweight elders and naked babies and the water is murky and polluted.

Minnesota, every state has lakes. Many states exist on the coastline. Nobody is impressed by the number of big, dirty puddles you have. When people start flying in for Spring Break you can brag all you want.

-Flotsam