Cougarville, Florida USA

Telluride Mountainfilm Festival’s signature prayer flags in WaterColor, Florida. Photo by Ben Knight

I walked up the stairs to the bar and there was Travis, literally surrounded by six young-man hungry Florida Cougars. They were touching him and making inappropriate comments about how adorable he was. I locked eyes with him, he looked like a dog in traffic. I quickly turned around to exit the awkwardness and before I could retreat I heard “this is my friend Ben.” It was too late, I flipped back around and let the old women play with my hair and giggle at us while slamming red wine as if it were their fountain of youth. Their pre-menopausal sexual predation instinct was on fire, and Travis and I had wandered into their $90 all-you-can-taste wine festival habitat. Just when we thought all hope was lost for a quick getaway, world champion fly fisher and Felt Soul movie star Frank Smethurst showed up. “This is our friend Frank, he has his own TV show.” We were saved. I’d like to recommend that Florida’s Division of Wildlife begin a wild cougar relocation program [WCRP]. Simply tranquilize the wild animals with a dart gun at the bar when they approach a male over 15 years younger, load them into a cage and humanely release them back into their homes with their third husbands.

I’ve been told by a tarpon junkie that a photo of migrating tarpon is somewhat rare. They must be leaving Location X, which turns out is just off the coast of Arkansas. Photo by Ben Knight

If anyone was curious as to why the three of us were in Florida: The Telluride Mountainfilm Festival has a tour show In WaterColor, a small ritzy beach community on Florida’s panhandle. They were kind enough to invite us for the two-day event so we could introduce Running Down the Man and show the Red Gold trailer. Someone was dumb enough to let us borrow cruiser bikes that we thrashed like mountain bikes all weekend. Although clunky and rusty, they handled quite well in the air. A local Tarpon and Red Fish junkie named Captain David Mangum www.shallowwaterexpeditions.com filled our daily fishing needs while a nearby kickball league left Travis and I so sore we went home with limps. If you haven’t played kickball since elementary school recess, I highly recommend giving it another go. I’m tired of writing now, but if you’re interested in the subject of the drunk kick boxing Russian vs. the sushi chef, let me know. Long story short, drunk kick boxing Russian: [2 kicks and 3 punches landed on Sushi Chef’s temporal lobe] Sushi Chef: [no contact made with Russian]
Awesome.

Huge thanks to John, Peter, Justin, David, Jason, Andy, Tether, Hillary, Corey, Randy, Melissa, Jonathon, Paula, the kickball crew and the WaterColor community for such a fun weekend. I’d also like to thank Florida for the brilliant addition of crab cakes to eggs Benedict.