Saturday, March 27, 2010

Where's the lake?

We awoke this morning to this scene out of our living room window.  It was rather magical.
Later in the morning, we hopped on the BMW and headed southeast towards Lake Okeechobee.  We traveled for quite a while beside the lake, but there were no views.  It turns out that Lake Okeechobee is so large that it has storm surges just like an ocean.  In the 1920's there was a series of hurricanes that caused storm surges that killed over 2000 people.  Hoover then had a 35 foot dike built around the lake to prevent any further deaths.  Sounds good except you cant see the lake unless you walk along the top of the dike.  We passed hundreds of homes that sat right next to Okeechobee and they look at a 35 foot hill.  No water view at all.  Very odd.
But we did find some scenic views along the biking and walking trail that goes along the top of the dike.  And the birds were plentiful which was nice since we had the binoculars.  We also came across some multi-colored flowers that we've never seen before.
One thing we noticed from above the water is that the water is so brackish it's color is almost like coffee.
And one other observation.  We heard what sounded like a squadron of planes coming toward us.  We had seen a biplane come by, and it was very quiet.
It turned out that it was two air-boats like you see in the everglades.  They were incredibly loud and caused birds that we had heard calling from the reeds and grass to take flight. The air-boats are terribly disturbing to the environment.  I've read that many localities are starting to outlaw them, and if the ones we saw are any indication, it sounds like they have a case.  Possibly a noise level law would be more appropriate than banning them outright.

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