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Lake Okeechobee is Florida's largest lake, the largest lake in the Southeast United States, and the second largest lake contained entirely within the United States. The history of this inland sea is marked both by natural processes, and more recently human development and intervention. Adventurers can explore this behemoth of a waterway via the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail that enriches it, a part of the Florida National Scenic Trail. This paper synthesizes major natural and human-induced perturbations that shaped the lake and ultimately the trail that encircles it to create a narrative of Florida's great lake. The story of Lake Okeechobee is a story of battles, first between the land and sea, then between the lake itself and humankind. For the past few centuries Lake Okeechobee's natural perturbations in water flow and flooding resisted the control of man, until recently when man triumphed, managing to control the flow of water in and out of the lake. Unfortunately, with this new found control a new bioecological threat in the form of harmful algal blooms has emerged, which again threatens the health and livelihood of South Floridians. Currently there are new efforts that seek to restore Lake Okeechobee towards a more natural state in an effort to thwart the blooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-drive tourism is popular in Florida and an under-researched academic area. Given electric vehicle sales grew significantly in the last few years, this paper investigated how electric cars could impact drive tourism in Florida. For self-drive tourists the quality of facilities and destinations drive satisfaction. Yet, supply side limitations can hinder an innovation’s adoption and diffusion. Investigating the availability of electric rental vehicles and necessary charging times while travelling between tourism destinations in Florida showed a limited availability of electric cars through established car rental companies. Turo, an example of a person-to-person car sharing service, had several electric cars on offer. Yet, charging facilities for electric vehicle renters and charging times between tourism destinations seem to be within acceptable thresholds. This limited supply of EVs could slow down the EV adoption for self-drive tourism. Given the infancy of the electric vehicle market, factors driving electric vehicle self-drive tourism will change significantly over time and tourist behaviour related to this new drive trend seems an interesting and growing research avenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]