That confuses a lot of people, actually. They know the Great Lakes are huge, but the word "lake" still conveys something rather small. Then they visit and say, "Wow. They really are... huge."
We definitely don't have anything on the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic and Pacific, but it's still really cool to live near such a large body of water. I grew up on Lake Huron, went to college on Lake Superior, and now live about 45 minutes east of Lake Michigan. [emoji4]
It's hard to comprehend their huge-ness until you're either standing on the beach or you see them compared to something else. My favorite comparison is where Lake Superior takes over the East Coast:
And then there's this: