Lakes

It could be argued that Illinois should not claim ownership of this lake though.

A Missouri lake has just been named one of the most picturesque in North America and that's not wrong.

It's a fact, but it doesn't sound right when you hear what Missouri has more of than California.

I'm afraid of heights and am not a very good swimmer, so this might just be my worst nightmare come true. It's Missouri's largest underground lake that plunges down 100 feet into the earth and is 400 feet long.

If it makes you feel any better, most snakes will leave you alone if you leave them alone. It probably will not make you feel better to know that Missouri's most snake-infested lake is 40,000 acres of vipers and many of them are venomous.

If we're being honest with ourselves, we've all broken rules at one time or another. However, there is one rule in Wisconsin that could save your life and it involves the 100 foot rule.

You need to be as safe before you get in the water as you hopefully are when you're swimming. There are now 25 water areas in Illinois that have been declared too unsafe for swimming due to dangerous bacteria levels.

Summertime is all about getting outside and enjoying the nice weather and swimming is a vital part of that. However, there are now 38 places in Illinois that now have urgent swimming warnings about staying out of the water.

I remember when the Mark Twain Lake area first began real development decades ago and the belief at the time was that it would be as popular in Missouri as Lake of the Ozarks, but that never happened. Why? That's a question the internet is debating.

I am suspicious of robots. I wonder what information they have that I don't that causes them to warn me about seemingly innocent things. That's why I was a bit alarmed when artificial intelligence began warning me about staying away from certain popular Missouri lakes over the 4th of July weekend. What do the robots know that we don't?