I'm the author, and yes, that's a pretty big geography fail. In my defense, I'd just moved to Ohio from Florida, and the ocean was so very far away... and also I had an exaggerated idea of how far away the Great Lakes were.

But in my brain, Cath and Jess had also moved to Ohio in the last few years (for Jessi's school) and so she might reasonably screw it up, too? Look, the character screwed it up, not me! Really! ;)