Five Gay Outdoor-ers ( John (me), Rene, Derek, Jeff and GOD newbie but Florida native Marcus) came out for an early October stroll on the dikes of Lake Okeechobee. Temps were in the 80’s but up on the dike were steady breezes. Sunny skies and no bugs. Yours truly made a miscalculation while setting up the shuttle cars & headed west instead of east as originally planned. But it all ended up for a more scenic and slightly longer hike. We even saw a colony of wasps busily preparing their nest on a post at one of the rest "huts". Turns out the original plan would have not had as many open vistas. Lake Okeechobee remains beautiful, functional as well as controversial. Beautiful as an “inland ocean”. Functional as a waterway when coupled with canals allows navigating small boats across the central part of the state between the Gulf of Mexico & the Atlantic ocean. Controversial in that water releases by the Army Corps of Engineers east & west to reduce water levels cause toxic blue-green algae blooms that decimate coastal recreation areas. This year those discharges are being exacerbated by the unrelated but just as toxic “red tide” algae. None of this toxicity affected us where we were. So while these beautiful areas exist we can enjoy for the afternoon & become aware of our fragile natural surroundings.