As the ocean, so the waves splashed merrily upon the shoreline, a soothing melody to my ears. From where I perched on the sandy bluff with my eyes resting somewhere distant, the sky and water melded into one with just a crisp line marking a distinction between the two. Straight before me lay an expanse of sea that my sight told me rolled on endlessly. To the right and to the left a glance down the shoreline confirmed that opinion. Puffy, white clouds floated in the blue and a gentle breeze stole in across the water. The breeze was wonderful, albiet a touch cool, and the silky, warm sand and I became amiable friends. Sparkling in the sunshine, the water danced in a myriad of hues, ranging from deep, vibrant blues to delicate aquas. Hardier souls than I frolicked therein, disregarding the fridgedness that I found somewhat intolerable. Near the shore, a pile of driftwood, sunbleached and waterlogged, broke the relentless rhythm of the waves. One could imagine that they had drifted for a season or two before coming to rest upon this very shore. Or perhaps they might have floated across from a distant country should one be given to such fancies. I spied the dark hulk of a ship leaving the safety of her port, and bravely setting sail toward the expanse where the water and sky become one. In a short space of time, she vanished from my sight out over the distant horizon. Seagulls, with their echoing calls, swooped over the shoreline. A white sail, toy-like against the backdrop of sea and sky, told of a sailor reliving the joys of earlier, maritime days. A part of me wished that I were he, skillfully trimming my sail, and tacking my craft to push forward against a prevailing wind. Ah, but here I sat ensconced upon a bluff of sand, observing this fine picture. And what a picture it was. So much beauty, all wrapped together in a cloak of serenity. But, strangely, the smell of salt was absent. And although my eyes told me that the waves rolled on endlessly beyond the horizon, my mind believed otherwise. For there, straight before me, perhaps not even a hundred miles distant, lay another shore very much like this one. For I was sitting on the shore of a lake. A lake both majestic and vast. As the ocean, so is Lake Michigan.