working on that bucket list

The more I think about a bucket list, my bucket list, the more I come up with.

One of the things I'm putting on my bucket list is to go to Lake Ontario. Technically it is part of the Great Lakes and is therefore claimed by Michigan. I don't know how strongly other people from Michigan feel about this, but um, have you ever looked at a map?

I have and it appears that we might have actually been closer to Lake Ontario when we lived in New Jersey.

Now to be fair, I googled directions from both houses to Rochester, NY because I needed an end place. When I just chose Lake Ontario, Google maps told me it could not give me directions.

Here are the facts:

It is 389 miles from Toms River, NJ to Lake Ontario (as roads go, not as the crow flies)
It is 452 miles from Grand Rapids, MI to Lake Ontario (as roads go, not as the crow flies)

Now, by the time you get to Rochester, NY from Michigan (by way of Canada), you have driven along quite a bit of lake shore. 

So if I move my end marker to the closest point which is Lakeshore Road in Burlington, Canada; that makes the trip shorter. It is 328 miles. To be fair, I changed the end point from Toms River too. The closer point is East 1st St, Oswego, Canada. That is 343 miles from Toms River.

So do I live closer to Lake Ontario now? Or when we lived in New Jersey? I think as the crow flies, it may still be NJ. I can move my marker to make the route shorter and it become 333 miles. We're getting closer. So maybe it is Michigan.

Who knew both places were basically equidistant to Lake Ontario? We're talking about a five mile difference. I'll leave it at that and go back to why I want to visit Lake Ontario.

Oh? Did you think I just want to visit there just for fun? 

No. If it's on a bucket list, doesn't it have to have a reason? Maybe not, but I have a reason!

I want to visit Lake Ontario because I have been to the other four Great Lakes. Doesn't it make sense that I go to the fifth lake?

For example: when I went to New York City on the Young Adult Mission trip (which I can't believe but I did NOT blog about it, at least that I can find) in 2010; I went to all five boroughs. We went to Staten Island to catch the ferry to Manhattan. We stayed in Brooklyn and we worked at a site in Queens. My group had a small amount of extra time one day and we just happened to be on a train whose last stop was in the Bronx. So we didn't get off at our stop, but instead rode the train to its last stop, got out, went up the stairs and outside, took a quick photo, and went back down to catch the train back to where we were supposed to be meeting the other group (at Grand Central Station). 


I've been to all five boroughs.

I've been to four of the five lakes.

I want to make it all five.