Podcasts about Everglades

On this episode of Brown Water Banter, we sit down with Terry Guilbeau—a Gulf Coast kayak fisherman whose story goes way deeper than most folks realize. Terry didn't just wake up one day paddling from shore to barrier islands. His journey took him from Louisiana to Texas, Miami, and eventually right here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Along the way, he built a career as an architect that led to an unexpected chapter—designing Margaritaville destinations around the world and working directly with Jimmy Buffett himself.

A resentencing trial is underway in Florida for a man already convicted of killing a five-year-old girl by leaving her to the gators in the Everglades, reopening one of the most brutal child murder cases in the state. A West Virginia woman is now charged with murder after investigators say her eleven-year-old stepdaughter was slowly starved to death inside her home. Drew Nelson reports.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode: A wild new bill in the Florida Legislature would let parents sue public school teachers for violating a parent's right to oversee the “moral training” of their child. Plus: Lawmakers may give more power to the politician at the center of the “Hope Florida” scandal; take more money from cities and counties; and launch an Everglades-like environmental recovery project in northeast Florida. An update from Day 8 of Florida's 2026 legislative session. Show notesThe bills discussed in today's show: Senate Bill 1010 — Enforcement of Protections for MinorsPassed the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee by a 5-1 vote (vote sheet)House Bill 743 — Prohibited Sex-reassignment Prescriptions and ProceduresPassed the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee by 12-5 vote (vote sheet)House Bill 103 — Local Business TaxesPassed the House Intergovernmental Affairs Subcommittee by a 10-6 vote (vote sheet)Senate Bill 408 — Advertisement of a Harmful VaccinePassed the Senate Regulated Industries Committee by a 5-3 vote (vote sheet)House Bill 981 — Tributaries of St. Johns RiverPassed the House Natural Resources & Disasters Subcommittee by a 16-0 vote (vote sheet)Senate Bill 1066 — Tributaries of the St. Johns RiverPassed the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee by an 8-0 vote (vote sheet)And the Ivermectin bills:House Bill 917 — Health CareSenate Bill 1756 — Medical FreedomStories discussed in today's show: A lawyer for Ron DeSantis revealed the real motive behind one of Florida's most controversial lawsFlorida's new budget sets the stage for a big environmental battleQuestions or comments? Send ‘em to Garcia.JasonR@gmail.comListen to the show: Apple | SpotifyWatch the show: YouTube Get full access to Seeking Rents at jasongarcia.substack.com/subscribe

Send us a textFlorida didn't just thaw us out—it rewired how we explore. We landed in Fort Myers with a loose plan and a lot of curiosity, then let geolocation games, local tips, and a few bold choices turn a winter weekend into a highlight reel of hidden gems. We chased the oldest geocache in Florida through a recently burned Everglades trail, watched smoke curl above the path, and laughed about the gators we didn't see. A quick prompt led us to the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, where the free grounds—lined with giant banyan trees and quiet labs—outshone the ticketed tour. And downtown delivered: Ford's Garage set the tone with gas pump door handles, tire sinks, and food that was way more than a gimmick.The Munzee community made the trip sing. We walked pristine park loops, mirrored sunsets on still water, and witnessed a crowning moment as Colecracker7 became the world's new number one. The hosts nailed the details: creative name tags, a “how did you get your handle” roll call, and a bingo card that turned strangers into fast friends. We put the new VACs feature to work and felt the difference—safer in cars, easier during walks, and perfect for travelers stacking caps across the city. By Sunday, the totals told the story: 5.1 million points in four days and a leaderboard bump that felt earned.Play followed us everywhere. Nice Guys Pizza glowed with blacklight art and a wall of pinball machines where a surprise upset changed our arcade pecking order. Millennial Brewing's mural tour jumped from DeLorean to Millennium Falcon, and for the first time, we all ordered the same sour. Then came Jungle Bird Tiki, a bamboo-wrapped oasis with generous pours in tall ceramic mugs, LED vines overhead, and food that kept us talking. It was the perfect landing spot to trade notes, plan the next event, and appreciate how Fort Myers and Cape Coral reward people who explore by foot, by app, and by appetite.If this journey gives you ideas, hit play and take notes. Subscribe, share the episode with a friend who loves hidden gems, and leave a quick review so more travelers can find their way to the good stuff. Where should we hunt for treasures next?Support the showFacebookInstagramYoutube

In this powerful and wide-ranging episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins sits down with Ken Behr, author of One Step Over the Line: Confessions of a Marijuana Mercenary. Behr tells his astonishing life story—from teenage marijuana dealer in South Florida, to high-level drug runner and smuggler, to DEA cooperating source working major international cases. Along the way, he offers rare, first-hand insight into how large-scale drug operations actually worked during the height of the War on Drugs—and why that war, in his view, has largely failed. From Smuggler to Source Behr describes growing up during the explosion of the drug trade in South Florida during the 1970s and 1980s, where smuggling marijuana and cocaine became almost commonplace. He explains how he moved from street-level dealing into large-scale logistics—off-loading planes, running covert runways in the Everglades, moving thousands of pounds of marijuana, and participating in international smuggling operations involving Canada, Jamaica, Colombia, and the Bahamas. After multiple arrests—including a serious RICO case that threatened him with decades in prison—Behr made the life-altering decision to cooperate with the DEA. What followed was a tense and dangerous double life as an undercover operative, helping law enforcement dismantle major trafficking networks while living under constant pressure and fear of exposure. Inside the Mechanics of the Drug Trade This episode goes deep into the nuts and bolts of organized drug trafficking, including: How clandestine runways were built and dismantled in minutes How aircraft were guided into unlit landing zones How smuggling crews were paid and organized Why most drug operations ultimately collapse from inside The role of asset seizures in federal drug enforcement Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript [00:00:00] well, hey, all your wire taps. It’s good to be back here in studio of Gangland Wire. I have a special guest today. He has a book called, uh, title is One Step Over the Line and, and he went several steps over the line, I think in his life. Ken Bearer, welcome Ken. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Now, Ken, Ken is a, was a marijuana smuggler at one time and, and ended up working with the DEA, so he went from one side over to my side and, and I always like to talk to you guys that that helped us in law enforcement and I, there’s a lot of guys that don’t like that out there, but I like you guys you were a huge help to us in law enforcement and ended up doing the right thing after you made a lot of money. So tell us about the money. We were just starting to talk about the money. Tell us about the money, all those millions and millions of dollars that you drug smuggler makes. What happens? Well, I, you know, like I said, um, Jimmy Buffett’s song a pirate looks at 40, basically, he says, I made enough money to to buy Miami and pissed it away all so fast, never meant to last. And, and that’s what happens. I do know a few people that have [00:01:00] put away money. One of my friends that we did a lot of money together, a lot of drug dealing and a lot of moving some product, and he’s put the money away. Got in bed with some other guy that was, you know, legal, bought a bunch of warehouses, and now he lives a great life, living off the money he put away. Yeah. If the rents and stuff, he, he got into real estate. Other guys have got into real estate and they got out and they ended up doing okay. ’cause now they’re drawing all those rents. That’s a good way to money. Exactly what he did. Uh, my favorite, I was telling you a favorite story of mine was the guy that was a small time dealer used to hang out at the beach. And, uh, we en he ended up saving $80,000, which was a lot of money back then. Yeah. And then put it all, went to school to be a culinary chef and then got a job at the Marriott as a culinary chef and a chef. So he, you know, he really took the money, made a little bit of money, didn’t make a lot Yeah. But made enough to go to school and do something with his life. That’s so, um, that’s a great one. That’s a good one [00:02:00] there. That’s real. Yeah. But he wasn’t a big time guy. Yeah. You know what, what happens is you might make a big lick. You know, I, I never made million dollar moves. I have lots of friends that did. I always said I didn’t want to be a smuggler. ’cause I was making a steady living, being a drug runner. If you brought in 40, 50,000 pounds of weed, you would come to me and then I would move it across the country and sell it in different, along with other guys like me. Having said that, so I say I’m a guy that never wanted to do a smuggling trip. I’ve done 12 of them. Yeah. Even though, you know, and you know, if you’ve been in the DEA side twelve’s a lot for somebody usually. Yeah. That’s a lot. They don’t make, there’s no longevity. Two or three trips. No. You know, I did it for 20 years. Yeah. And then finally I got busted one time in Massachusetts in 1988. We had 40,000 pounds stuck up in Canada. So a friend of mine comes to me, another friend had the 40,000 pounds up there. He couldn’t sell it. He goes, Hey, you wanna help me smuggle [00:03:00] this back into America? Which, you know, is going the wrong direction. The farther north it goes, the more money it’s worth. I would’ve taken it to Greenland for Christ’s sakes. Yeah. But, we smuggled it back in. What we did this time was obviously they, they brought a freighter or a big ship to bring the 40,000 pounds into Canada. Mm-hmm. He added, stuffed in a fish a fish packing plant in a freezer somewhere up there. And so we used the sea plane and we flew from a lake in Canada to a lake in Maine where the plane would pull up, I’d unload. Then stash it. And we really did like to get 1400 pounds. We had to go through like six or seven trips. ’cause the plane would only hold 200 and something pounds. Yeah. And a sea plane can’t land at night. It has to land during the day. Yeah. You can’t land a plane in the middle of a lake in the night, I guess yourself. Yeah. I see. Uh, and so we got, I got busted moving that load to another market and that cost, uh, [00:04:00] cost me about $80,000 in two years of fighting in court to get out of that. Yeah. Uh, but I did beat the case for illegal search and seizure. So one for the good guys. It wasn’t for the good guys. Well the constitution, he pulled me over looking for fireworks and, ’cause it was 4th of July and, yeah. The name of that chapter in the book is why I never work on a holiday. So you don’t wanna spend your holiday in jail ’cause there’s no, you can’t on your birthday. So another, the second time I got busted was in 92. So just a couple years later after, basically I was in the system for two years with the loss, you know, fighting it and that, that was for Rico. I was looking at 25 years. But, uh, but like a normal smuggling trip. I’ll tell you one, we did, I brought, I actually did my first smuggling trip. I was on the run in Jamaica from a, a case that I got named in and I was like 19 living down in Jamaica to cool out. And then my buddies came down. So we ended up bringing out 600 pounds. So that was my first tr I was about 19 or [00:05:00] 20 years old when I did my first trip. I brought out 600 pounds outta Jamaica. A friend of mine had a little Navajo and we flew it out with that, but. I’ll give you an example of a smuggling trip. So a friend of mine came to me and he wanted to load 300 kilos of Coke in Columbia and bring it into America. And he wanted to know if I knew anybody that could load him 300 kilos. So I did. I introduced him to a friend of mine that Ronnie Vest. He’s the only person you’ll appreciate this. Remember how he kept wanting to extradite all the, the guys from Columbia when we got busted, indict him? Yes. And of course, Escobar’s living in his own jail with his own exit. Yeah. You know, and yeah. So the Columbian government says, well, we want somebody, why don’t you extradite somebody to America, to Columbia? So Ronnie Vest had gotten caught bringing a load of weed outta Columbia. You know, they sent ’em back to America. So that colo, the Americans go, I’ll tell you what you want. Somebody. And Ronnie Vests got the first good friend of mine, first American to be [00:06:00] extradited to Columbia to serve time. So he did a couple years in the Columbian prison. And so he’s the one that had the cocaine connection now. ’cause he spent time in Columbia. Yeah. And you know, so we brought in 300 kilos of Coke. He actually, I didn’t load it. He got another load from somebody else. But, so in the middle of the night, you set up on a road to nowhere in the Everglades, there’s so many Floridas flat, you’ve got all these desolate areas. We go out there with four or five guys. We take, I have some of ’em here somewhere. Callum glow sticks. You know the, the, the glow sticks you break, uh, yeah. And some flashing lights throw ’em out there. Yeah. And we set up a, yeah, the pilot came in and we all laid in the woods waiting for the plane to come in. And as soon as the pilot clicks. The mic four times. It’s, we all click our mics four times and then we run out. He said to his copilot, he says, look, I mean, we lit up this road from the sky. He goes, it looks like MIA [00:07:00] behind the international airport. But it happens like that within a couple, like a minute, we’ll light that whole thing up. Me and one other guy run down the runway. It’s a lot, it’s a long run, believe me. We put out the lights, we gotta put out the center lights and then the marker lights, because you gotta have the center of the runway where the plane’s gonna land and the edge is where it can’t, right? Yeah. He pulls up, bring up a couple cars, I’m driving one of them, load the kilos in. And then we have to refuel the plane because you don’t, you know, you want to have enough fuel to get back to an FBO to your landing airport or real airport. Yeah. Not the one we made in the Everglades. Yeah. And then the trick is the car’s gotta get out of there. Yeah, before the plane takes off. ’cause when that plane takes off, you know you got a twin engine plane landing is quiet, taking off at full throttle’s gonna wake up the whole neighborhood. So once we got out of there, then they went ahead and got the plane off. And then the remaining guys, they gotta clean up the mess. We want to use this again. So we [00:08:00] wanna clean up all the wires, the radios. Mm-hmm. Pick up the fuel tanks, pick up the runway lights, and their job is to clean that off and all that’s gonna take place before the police even get down the main road. Right? Mm-hmm. That’s gonna all take place in less than 10 minutes. Wow. I mean, the offload takes, the offload takes, you can offload about a thousand pounds, which I’ve done in three minutes. Wow. But, and then refueling the plane, getting everything else cleaned up. Takes longer. Yeah. Interesting. So how many guys would, would be on that operation and how do you pay that? How do you decide who gets paid what? How much? Okay. So get it up front or, I always curious about the details, how that stuff, I don’t think I got paid enough. And I’ll be honest, it was a hell of a chance. I got 20 grand looking at 15 years if you get caught. Yeah. But I did it for the excitement. 20 grand wasn’t that much. I had my own gig making more money than that Uhhuh, you know, but I was also racing cars. I was, there’s a [00:09:00] picture of one of my race cars. Oh cool. So that costs about six, 7,000 a weekend. Yeah. And remember I’m talking about 1980s dollars. Yeah. That’s 20,000 a weekend. A weekend, yes. Yeah. And that 20,000 for a night’s work in today’s world would be 60. Yeah. Three. And I’m talking about 1985 versus, that was 40 years ago. Yeah. Um. But it’s a lot of fun and, uh, and, but it, you kind of say to yourself, what was that one step over the line? That’s why I wrote the book. I remember as a kid thinking in my twenties, man, I’ve taken one step over the line. So the full name of the book is One Step Over the Line Con Confessions of a Marijuana Mercenary. That’s me actually working for the DEA. That picture was at the time when I was working for the DEA, so the second time I got busted in 1992 was actually for the smallest amount of weed that I ever got, ever really had. It was like 80, a hundred pounds. But unfortunately it was for Rico. I didn’t know at the [00:10:00] time, but when they arrested me, I thought, oh, they only caught me with a hundred pounds. But I got charged with Rico. So I was looking at 25 years. What, how, what? Did they have some other, it must have had some other offenses that they could tie to and maybe guns and stuff or something that get that gun. No, we never used guns ever. Just other, other smuggling operations. Yeah, yeah. Me, me and my high school friend, he had moved to Ohio in 77 or 78, so he had called me one time, he was working at the Ford plant and he goes, Hey, I think I could sell some weed up here. All right. I said, come on down, I’ll give you a couple pounds. So he drives down from Ohio on his weekend off, all the way from Ohio. I gave him two pounds. He drove home, calls me back. He goes, I sold it. So I go, all right. He goes, I’m gonna get some more. So at that time, I was working for one of the largest marijuana smugglers in US History. His name was Donny Steinberg. I was just a kid, you know, like my job, part of my [00:11:00] job was to, they would gimme a Learjet. About a million or two and I jump on a Learjet and fly to the Cayman Islands. I was like 19 years old. Same time, you know, kid. Yeah, just a kid. 19 or 20 and yeah. 18, I think. And so I ended up doing that a few times. That was a lot of fun. And that’s nice to be a kid in the Learjet and they give me a million or two and they gimme a thousand dollars for the day’s work. I thought I was rich, I was, but people gotta understand that’s in that 78 money, not that’s, yeah. That was more like $10,000 for day, I guess. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It was a lot of money for an 18, 19-year-old kid. Yeah. Donnie gives me a bail. So Terry comes back from Ohio, we shoved the bale into his car. Barely would fit ’cause he had no big trunk on this Firebird. He had, he had a Firebird trans Am with the thunder black with a thunder, thunder chicken on the hood. It was on the hood. Oh cool. That was, that was a catch meow back then. Yeah. Yeah. It got it with that [00:12:00] Ford plant money. And uh, by the way, that was after that 50 pounds got up. ’cause every bail’s about 50 pounds. That’s the last he quit forward the next day. I bet. And me and him had built a 12 year, we were moving. Probably 50 tons up there over the 12 year period. You know, probably, I don’t know, anywhere from 50 to a hundred thousand pounds we would have, he must have been setting up other dealers. So among his friends, he must have been running around. He had the distribution, I was setting up the distribution network and you had the supply. I see. Yeah. I was the Florida connection. It’s every time you get busted, the cops always wanna grab that Florida connection. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You gotta go down there. I there, lemme tell you, you know, I got into this. We were living in, I was born on a farm in New Jersey, like in know Norman Rockwell, 1950s, cow pies and hay bales. And then we moved to New Orleans in 1969 and then where my dad had business and right after, not sure after that, he died when I was 13. As I say in the book, I [00:13:00] probably wouldn’t have been writing the book if my father was alive. Yeah. ’cause I probably wouldn’t have went down that road, you know? But so my mother decides in 1973 to move us to, uh, south Florida, to get away from the drugs in the CD underside of New Orleans. Yeah. I guess she didn’t read the papers. No. So I moved from New Orleans to the star, the war on where the war on drugs would start. I always say if she’d have moved me to Palo Alto, I’d be Bill Gates, but No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was so, uh, and everybody I knew was running drugs, smuggling drugs, trying to be a drug deal. I mean, I was, I had my own operation. I was upper middle level, but there were guys like me everywhere. Mm-hmm. There were guys like me everywhere, moving a thou, I mean, moving a thousand, 2000 pounds at the time was a big thing, you know? That’s, yeah. So, so about what year was that? I started in 19. 70. Okay. Three. I was [00:14:00] 16. Started selling drugs outta my mom’s house, me and my brother. We had a very good business going. And by the time I was got busted, it was 19 92. So, so you watched, especially in South Florida, you watched like where that plane could go down and go back up that at eventually the feds will come up with radar and they have blimps and they have big Bertha stuff down there to then catch those kinds of things. Yeah. Right, right. Big Bertha was the blimp. Uhhuh, uh, they put up, yeah. In the beginning you could just fly right in. We did one trip one time. This is this, my, my buddy picked up, I don’t know, 40 or 50 kilos in The Bahamas. So you fly into Fort Lauderdale and you call in like you’re gonna do a normal landing. Mm-hmm. And the BLI there. This is all 1980s, five. You know, they already know. They’re doing this, but you just call in, like you’re coming to land in Fort Lauderdale, and what you do is right before you land, you hit the tower up and you tell ’em you wanna do a [00:15:00] go around, meaning you’re not comfortable with the landing. Mm-hmm. Well, they’ll always leave you a go around because they don’t want you to crash. Yeah. And right west of the airport was a golf course, and right next to the golf course, oh, about a mile down the road was my townhouse. So we’re in the townhouse. My buddies all put on, two of the guys, put on black, get big knives, gear, and I drive to one road on the golf course and my other friend grows Dr. We drop the guys off in the golf course as the plane’s gonna do the touchdown at the airport. He says, I gotta go around. As he’s pulling up now, he’s 200 feet below the radar, just opens up the side of the plane. Mm-hmm. The kickers, we call ’em, they’re called kickers. He kicks the baskets, the ba and the guys on, on the golf court. They’re hugging trees. Yeah. You don’t wanna be under that thing. Right. You got a 200, you got maybe a 40 pound package coming in at 120 miles an hour from 200 feet up. It’ll break the bra. It’ll yeah. The [00:16:00] branches will kill you. Yeah. So they pull up, they get out, I pull back up in the pickup truck, he runs out, jumps in the back of the truck, yells, hit it. We drive the mile through the back roads to my townhouse. Get the coke in the house. My buddy rips it open with a knife. It’s and pulls out some blow. And he looks at me, he goes, Hey, let’s get outta here. And I go, where are we going? Cops come and he goes, ah, I got two tickets. No, four tickets to the Eddie Murphy concert. So we left the blow in this trunk of his car. Oh. Oh, oh man. I know. We went to Eddie Murphy about a million dollars worth of product in the trunk. Oh. And, uh, saw a great show and came back and off they went. That’s what I’m trying to point out is that’s how fast it goes down, man. It’s to do. Yeah. Right in, in 30 minutes. We got it out. Now the thing about drug deals is we always call ’em dds delayed dope deals because the smuggling [00:17:00] trip could take six months to plan. Yeah. You know, they never go, there’s no organized crime in organized crime. Yeah. No organization did it. Yeah. And then, then of course, in 1992 when I got busted and was looking at Rico, a friend of mine came up to me. He was a yacht broker. He had gotten in trouble selling a boat, and he said, Hey, I’d you like to work for the DEA. I’d done three months in jail. I knew I was looking at time, I knew I had nothing. My lawyers told me, Kenny, you either figure something out or you’re going to jail for a mm-hmm. And I just had a newborn baby. I just got married three weeks earlier and we had a newborn baby. I said, what are you crazy? I mean, I’m waiting for my wife to hear me. You know, he’s calling me on the phone. He goes, meet me for lunch. I go meet him for lunch. And he explains to me that he’s gonna, he’s got a guy in the, uh, central district in Jacksonville, and he’s a DEA agent, and I should go talk to him. And so the DEA made a deal with the Ohio police that anything that I [00:18:00] confiscated, anything that I did, any assets I got, they would get a share in as long as they released me. Yeah. To them. And, you know, it’s all about the, I hate to say this, I’m not saying that you don’t want to take drugs off the street, but if you’re the police department and you’re an agent, it’s about asset seizures. Yeah. Yeah. That’s how you fund the dr. The war on drugs. Yeah. The war begets war. You know, I mean, oh, I know, been Florida was, I understand here’s a deal. You’re like suing shit against the tide, right? Fighting that drug thing. Okay? It just keeps coming in. It keeps getting cheaper. It keeps getting more and more. You make a little lick now and then make a little lick now and then, but then you start seeing these fancy cars and all this money out there that you can get to. If you make the right score, you, you, you hit the right people, you can get a bunch of money, maybe two or three really cool cars for your unit. So then you’ll start focusing on, go after the money. I know it’s not right, but you’re already losing your shoveling shit against the tide anyhow, so just go after the goal. [00:19:00] One time I set up this hash deal for the DEA from Amsterdam. The guy brought the hash in, and I had my agent, you know, I, I didn’t set up the deal. The guy came to me and said, we have 200 kilos of hash. Can you help us sell it? He didn’t know that I was working for the DEA, he was from Europe. And I said, sure. The, the thing was, I, so in the boat ready to close the deal, now my guy is from Central. I’m in I’m in Fort Lauderdale, which is Southern District. So he goes, Hey, can you get that man to bring that sailboat up to Jacksonville? I go, buddy, he just sailed across the Atlantic. He ain’t going to Jacksonville. So the central district has to come down, or is a northern district? I can’t remember if it’s northern or central. Has to come down to the Southern district. So, you know, they gotta make phone calls. Everybody’s gotta be in Yep. Bump heads. So I’m on the boat and he calls me, he goes, Hey, we gotta act now. Yeah. And I’m looking at the mark, I go, why? He [00:20:00] goes, customs is on the dock. We don’t want them involved. So you got the two? Yeah. So I bring him up, I go, where’s the hash? He goes, it’s in the car. So we go up to the car and he opens the trunk, and I, I pull back one of the duffle bags I see. I can tell immediately it’s product. So I go like this, and all hell breaks loose, right? Yeah. I could see the two customs agents and they’re all dressed like hillbillies. They, you know. So I said to my, my handler, the next day I called them up to debrief. You know, I have to debrief after every year, everything. I goes, so what happened when customs I go, what’d they want to do? He goes, yep. They wanted to chop the boat in threes. So they’re gonna sell the boat and the 2D EA offices are gonna trade it. Yeah. Are gonna shop the money. Yeah. I remember when I registered with the DEA in, in, in the Southern district, I had to tell ’em who I was. They go, why are you working for him? Why aren’t you working for us? I’m like, buddy, I’m not in charge here. This is, you know? Yeah. I heard that many [00:21:00] times through different cases we did, where the, the local cop would say to me, why don’t you come work for us? Oh yeah. Try to steal your informant. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So how about that? So, can you get a piece of the action if they had a big case seizure? Yeah. Did they have some deal where you’d get a piece of that action there? Yep. That’s a pretty good deal. Yeah. So I would get, I, I’d get, like, if we brought down, he would always tell everybody that he needed money to buy electronics and then he would come to me and go, here’s 2000. And to the other cis, he had three guys. I saw a friend of mine, the guy that got me into the deal. Them a million dollar house or a couple million dollar house. And I saw the DEA hand him a suitcase with a million dollars cash in it. Wow. I mean, I’m sorry, with a hundred thousand cash. A hundred thousand. Okay. I was gonna say, I was thinking a million. Well, a hundred thousand. Yeah, a hundred thousand. I’ve heard that. I just didn’t have any experience with it myself. But I heard that. I saw, saw Open it up, saw money. I saw the money. It was one of those aluminum halla, Halliburton reef cases and Yeah, yeah. A [00:22:00] hundred thousand cash. But, uh, but you know, um, it’s funny, somebody once asked me out of, as a kid I wanted to be a cowboy, a race car driver, and a secret agent. Me too. Yes. Yeah. I didn’t want, I wanted to be a, I grew up on a farm, so I kind of rode a horse. I had that watched Rowdy, you got saved background as me, man. Yeah. You know, we watched, we watched, we grew up on westerns. We watched Gun Smoke, rowdy. Oh yeah. You know, uh, bananas, uh, you know, so, um. So anyway, uh, I got to raise cars with my drug money, and I guess I’m not sure if I was more of a secret agent working as a drug dealer or as the DEA, but it’s a lot of I, you know, I make jokes about it now, but it’s a lot of stress working undercover. Oh, yeah. Oh, I can’t even imagine that. I never worked undercover. I, that was not my thing. I like surveillance and putting pieces together and running sources, but man, that actual working undercover that’s gotta be nerve wracking. It’s, you know, and, and my handler was good at it, but [00:23:00] he would step out and let, here’s, I’ll tell you this. One day he calls me up and he goes, Hey, I’m down here in Fort Lauderdale. You need to come down here right now. And I’m having dinner at my house about 15 minutes away. Now he lives in Jacksonville. I go, what’s he doing in Fort Lauderdale? So I drive down to the hotel and he’s got a legal pad and a pen. He goes, my, uh, my, my seniors want to, uh, want you to proffer. You need to tell me everything you ever did. And they want me to do a proffer. And I go, I looked at him. I go, John, I can’t do that. He start, we start writing. I start telling him stuff. I stop. I go, I grew up in this town. Everybody I know I did a drug deal with from high school, I go, I would be giving you every single kid, every family, man, I grew up here. My, I’m gonna be in jail, and my wife and my one and a half year old daughter are gonna be the only people left in this town, and they’re not gonna have any support. And I just can’t do this to all my friends. Yeah. So he says, all right, puts the pen down. I knew [00:24:00] he hated paperwork, so I had a good shot. He wasn’t gonna, he goes, yeah, you hungry? I go, yeah. He goes, let’s go get a steak. And right across the street was a place called Chuck Steakhouse, which great little steak restaurant. All right. So we go over there, he goes, and he is a big guy. He goes, sit right here. I go, all right. So I sit down. I, I’m getting a free steak. I’m gonna sit about through the steak dinner, it goes. Look over my shoulder. So I do this. He goes, see the guy at the bar in the black leather jacket. I go, yeah. He goes, when I get up and walk outta here, when I clear the door, I want you to go up to him and find a talk drug deal. See what you can get out of him. I go, you want me to walk up to a complete stranger and say, he goes, I’m gonna walk out the door. When I get out the door. You’re gonna go up and say, cap Captain Bobby. That was his, he was a ca a boat captain and his nickname, his handle was Captain Bobby. And he was theoretically the next Vietnam vet that now is a smuggler, you know?[00:25:00] Yeah. And so he walks out the door and I walked out and sat with the guy at the bar and we started, I said, hi, captain Bobby sent me, I’m his right hand man, you know, to talk about. And we talked and I looked around the bar trying to see if anybody was with him. And I’m figuring, now I’m looking at the guy going, why is he so open with me? And I’m thinking, you know what? He’s wearing a leather jacket. He’s in Florida. I bet you he’s got a wire on and he’s working for customs and I’m working for the DEA, so nothing ever came of it. But you know, that was, you know, you’re sitting there eating dinner and all of a sudden, you know, look over my shoulder. Yeah. And, you know, and I’m trying to balance all that with having a newborn that’s about a year old and my wife and Yeah. Looking at 25 years. So a little bit of pressure. But, you know, hey and I understand these federal agencies, everybody’s got, everybody is, uh, uh, aggressive. Everybody is ambitious. And you just are this guy in the middle and right. And they’ll throw you to the [00:26:00] wolves in a second. Second, what have you done for a second? Right? It’s what have you done for me lately? He’s calling me up and said, Hey, I don’t got any product from you in a minute. I go, well, I’m working on it. He goes, well, you know, they’ll kick you outta the program. Yeah. But one of the things he did he was one of, he was the GS 13. So he had some, you know, he had level, you know, level 15 or whatever, you know, he was, yeah. Almost at the head of near retirement too. And he said, look, he had me, he had another guy that was a superstar, another guy. And we would work as a team and he would feed us all the leads. In other words, if David had a case, I’d be on that case. So when I went to go to go to trial or go to my final, he had 14 or 15 different things that he had penciled me in to be involved with. The biggest deal we did at the end of my two years with the DEA was we brought down the Canadian mob. They got him for 10,000 kilos of cocaine, import 10,000 kilos. It was the Hell’s Angels, the Rock something, motorcycle [00:27:00] gang, the Italian Mafia and the, and the Irish mob. Mm-hmm. And the guy, I mean, this is some badass guys. I was just a player, but. The state of Ohio, they got to fly up there and you know, I mean, no words, the dog and pony show was always on to give everybody, you know. Yes. A bite at the apple. Oh yeah. But I’ll tell you this, it’s been 33 years and the two people that I’m close to is my arresting officer in Ohio and my DEA handler in Jacksonville. The arresting officer, when he retired, he called to gimme his new cell phone. And every year or so I call him up around Christmas and say, Dennis, thank you for the opportunity to turn my life around, because I’ve got four great kids. I’ve started businesses, you know, he knows what I’ve done with my life. And the DEA handler, that’s, he’s a friend of mine. I mean, you know, we talk all the time and check on each other. And, you know, I mean, he’s, [00:28:00] they’re my friends. A lot of, not too many of the guys are left from those days that will talk to me. Yeah, probably not. And most of them are dead or in jail anyhow. For, well, a lot of ’em are, maybe not even because of you, I mean, because that’s their life. No, but a lot of them, a number of ’em turned their lives around, went into legal businesses and have done well. Yeah. So, you know, there really have, so not all of ’em, but a good share of ’em have turned, because we weren’t middle class kids. We were, my one friend was, dad was the lieutenant of the police department. The other one was the post guy. We weren’t inner city kids. Yeah. We weren’t meeting we, the drug war landed on us and we just, we were recruited into it. As young as I talk about in my book. But I mean, let’s talk about what’s going on now. Now. Yeah. And listen, I’m gonna put some statistics out there. Last year, 250,000 people were charged with cannabis. 92% for simple possession. There’s [00:29:00] people still in jail for marijuana doing life sentences. I’ve had friends do 27 years only for marijuana. No nonviolent crimes, first time offender. 22 years, 10 years. And the government is, I’ve been involved with things where the government was smuggling the drugs. I mean, go with the Iran Contra scandal that happened. We were trading guns for cocaine with the Nicaraguans in the Sandon Easterns. Yeah. Those same pilots. Gene Hassen Fus flew for Air America and Vietnam moving drugs and gun and, and guns out of Cambodia. Same guy. Air America. Yeah. The American government gave their soldiers opium in Civil War to keep ’em marching. You know, I mean, we did a deal with Lucky Luciano, where we let ’em out of prison for doing heroin exchange for Intel from, from Europe on during World War II and his, and the mob watching the docks for the, uh, cargo ships. So the government’s been intertwined in the war on drugs on two [00:30:00] sides of it. Yeah. You know, and not that it makes it right. Look, I’ve lost several friends to fentanyl that thought they were doing coke and did fentanyl or didn’t even know there was any. They just accidentally did fentanyl and it’s a horrible drug. But those boats coming out of Venezuela don’t have fentanyl on ’em. No. Get cocaine maybe. If that, and they might be, they’re probably going to Europe. Europe and they’re going to Europe. Yeah, they’re going, yeah. They’re doubt they’re going to Europe. Yeah. Yeah. And so let’s put it this way. I got busted for running a 12 year ongoing criminal enterprise. We moved probably 50 tons of marijuana. You know what? Cut me down? One guy got busted with one pound and he turned in one other guy that went all the way up to us. So if you blew up those boats, you know, you’re, you need the leads. You, you can’t kill your clients. Yeah. You know, how are you gonna get, not gonna get any leads outta that. Well, that’s, uh, well, I’m just saying [00:31:00] you right. The, if they followed the boat to the mothership Yeah. They’d have the whole crew and all the cargo. Yeah. You know, it’s, those boats maybe have 200 kilos on ’em. A piece. Yeah. The mothership has six tons. Yeah. That’s it. It’s all about the, uh, the, um, uh, optics. Optics, yeah. That’s the word. It’s all about the optics and, and the politic, you know, in, in some way it may deter some people, but I don’t, I I, I’ve never seen anything, any consequence. In that drug business, there’s too much money. There is no consequence that is really ever gonna deter people from smuggling drugs. Let me put it this way, except for a few people like yourself, there’s a few like yourself that get to a certain age and the consequence of going to prison for a long time may, you know, may bring you around or the, all the risk you’re taking just, you know, you can’t take it anymore, but you gotta do something. But no, well, I got busted twice. Consequence just don’t matter. There is no consequence that’s gonna do anything. Here’s why. And you’re right. [00:32:00] One is how do you get in a race car and not think you’re gonna die? Because you always think it’s gonna happen to somebody else. Exactly. And the drug business is the same. It’s, I’m not, it’s not gonna happen to me tonight. And those guys in Venezuela, they have no electricity. They have no water. Yeah. They got nothing. They have a chance to go out and make a couple thousand dollars and change their family’s lives. Yeah. Or they’re being, they’re got family members in the gar, in the gangs that are forcing them to do it. Yeah. It’s the war on drugs has kind of been a political war and an optics war from the seventies. I mean, it’s nobody, listen, I always say, I say in my book, nobody loved it more than the cops, the lawyers and the politicians. No shit. In Fort Lauderdale, they had nothing, and all of a sudden the drug wars brought night scopes and cigarette boats and fancy cars and new offices. Yes. And new courthouses, and new jails and Yep. I don’t have an answer. Yeah. The problem is, [00:33:00] you know what I’m gonna say, America, Mexico doesn’t have a drug problem. Columbia doesn’t have a drug problem. No. America has a drug problem. Those are just way stations to get the product in. In the cover of my book, it says, you don’t sell drugs, you supply them like ammunition in a war. It’s a, people, we, how do we fix this? How do we get the American people? Oh, by the way, here’s a perfect example. Marijuana is legal in a majority of states. You don’t see anybody smuggling marijuana in, I actually heard two stories of people that are smuggling marijuana out of the country. I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that. Yeah. They’re growing so much marijuana in America that it’s worth shipping to other places, either legally or illegally. Yeah. And, and, and you know, the biggest problem is like, what they’ll do is they’ll set up dispensaries, with the green marijuana leaf on it, like it’s some health [00:34:00] dispensary. But they, they just won’t it’ll be off the books. It just won’t have the licensing and all that. And, you know, you run that for a while and then maybe you get caught, maybe you don’t. And so it’s, you know, it’s, well, the other thing is with that dispensary license. It’s highly regulated, but you can get a lot of stuff in the gray. So there’s three markets now. There’s the white market, which is the legal Yeah. Business that, you know, you can buy stocks in the companies and whatnot. Yeah. There’s the black market, which is the guy on the street that Kenny Bear used to be. And then there’s the gray market where people are taking black market product and funneling it through the white markets without intact, you know, the taxes and the licensing and the, the, uh, testing for, you know, you have to test marijuana for pesticides. Metals, yeah. And, and the oils and the derivatives. You know, there’s oil and there’s all these derivatives. They have to be tested. Well, you could slide it through the gray market into the white market. So I know it’s a addiction, you know, whether it’s gambling or sex or Right. Or [00:35:00] there’s always gonna be people who are gonna take advantage and make money off of addiction. The mafia, you know, they refined it during the prohibition. All these people that drink, you know, and a lot, admittedly, a lot of ’em are social drinkers, but awful lot of ’em work. They had to have it. And so, you know, then gambling addiction. And that’s, uh, well here’s what I say. If it wasn’t for Prohibition Vegas, the mob never would’ve had the power and the money to build Vegas. No, they wouldn’t have anything. So when you outlaw something that people want, you’re creating a, a business. If, if somebody, somebody said the other day, if you made all the drugs legal in America, would that put out, put the drug cartels in Mexico and Columbia and out of business? Yeah, maybe. How about this statistic? About 20 to 30,000 people a year die from cocaine overdose. Most have a medical condition. Unknown unbe, besides, they’re not ODing on cocaine. Yeah. Alright. 300,000 people a year die from obesity. Yeah. And [00:36:00] another, almost four, I think 700, I don’t know, I might be about to say a half a million die from alcohol and tobacco. Mm-hmm. I could be low on that figure. So you’re, you probably are low. Yeah. I could be way more than that. But on my point is we’re regulating alcohol, tobacco, and certainly don’t care how much food you eat, and why don’t we have a medical system that takes care of these people. I don’t know that the answer if I did, but I’m just saying it, making this stuff more valuable and making bigger crime syndicates doesn’t make sense. Yeah. See a addiction is such a psychological, spiritual. Physical maldy that people can’t really separate the three and they don’t, people that, that aren’t involved and then getting some kind of recovery, they can’t understand why somebody would go back and do it again after they maybe were clean for a while. You know, that’s a big common problem with putting money into the treatment center [00:37:00] business. Yep. Because people do go to treatment two and three times and, and maybe they never get, some people never, they’ll chase it to death. No, and I can’t explain it. And you know, I, I’ll tell you what, I have my own little podcast. It’s called One Step Over the Line. Mm-hmm. And I released a show last night about a friend of mine, his name is Ron Black. You can watch it or any of your listeners can watch it, and Ron was, went down to the depths of addiction, but he did it a long time ago when they really spent a lot of time and energy to get, you know, they really put him through his system. 18 months, Ron got out clean and he came from a good family. He was raised right. He didn’t, you know, he had some trauma in his life. He had some severe trauma as a child, but he built one of the largest addiction. He has a company that he’s, he ran drug counseling services. He’s been in the space 20 or 30 years, giving back. He has a company that trains counselors to be addiction specialists. He has classes for addiction counseling. He become certified [00:38:00] members. He’s run drug rehabs. He donates to the, you know, you gotta wa if you get a chance to go to my podcast, one step over the line and, and watch this episode we did last night. Probably not the most exciting, you know, like my stories. Yeah. But Ronnie really did go through the entire addiction process from losing everything. Yeah. And pulling himself out. But he was also had a lot of family. You know, he had the right steps. A lot of these kids I was in jail with. Black and brown, inter or inner city youth, whatever, you know, their national, you know, race or nationality, they don’t have a chance. Yeah. They’re in jail with their fathers, their cousins, their brothers. Mm-hmm. The law, the war on drugs, and the laws on drugs specifically affect them. And are they, I remember thinking, is this kid safer in this jail with a cement roof over his head? A, a hot three hot meals and a bed than being back on the [00:39:00] streets? Yeah. He was, I mean. Need to, I used to do a program working with, uh, relatives of addicts. And so this mother was really worried about her son gonna go to jail next time he went to court. And he, she had told me enough about him by then. I said, you know, ma’am, I just wanna tell you something he’s safer doing about a year or so in jail than he is doing a year or so on the streets. Yeah. And she said, she just looked at me and she said, you know, you’re right. You’re right. So she quit worried about and trying to get money and trying to help him out because she was just, she was killing him, getting him out and putting him back on the streets. This kid was gonna die one way or the other, either shot or overdosed or whatever. But I’ll tell you another story. My best friend growing up in New Orleans was Frankie Monteleone. They owned the Monte Hotel. They own the family was worth, the ho half a billion dollars at the time, maybe. And Frankie was a, a diabetic. And he was a, a junk. He was a a because of the diabetic needles. [00:40:00] He kind of became a cocaine junkie, you know, shooting up coke. You know, I guess the needle that kept him alive was, you know, I, you know, again the addict mentality. Right, right. You can’t explain it. So he got, so he got busted trying to sell a couple grams. They made it into a bigger case by mentioning more product conspiracy. His father said, got a, the, the father made a deal to give him a year and a half in club Fed. Yeah. He could, you know, get a tan, practice his tennis, learn chess come out and be the heir to one of the richest families in the world, all right. He got a year and a half. Frankie did 10 years in prison. ’cause every time he got out, he got violated. Oh yeah. I remember going to his federal probation officer to get my bicycle. He was riding when he got violated. Mm-hmm. And I said, I said, sir, he was in a big building in Fort Lauderdale or you know, courthouse office building above the courthouse. I go, there’s so many cops, lawyers, [00:41:00] judges, that are doing blow on a Saturday night that are smoking pot, that are drinking more than they should all around us. You’ve got a kid that comes from one of the wealthiest families in America that’s never gonna hurt another citizen. He’s just, he’s an addict, not a criminal. He needs a doctor, not a jail. And you know what the guy said to me? He goes but those people aren’t on probation. I, I know. He did. 10 years in and out of prison. Finally got out, finally got off of paper, didn’t stop doing drugs. Ended up dying in a dentist chair of an overdose. Yeah. So you, you never fixed them, you just imprisoned somebody that would’ve never heard another American. Yeah, but we spent, it cost us a lot of money. You know, I, I, I dunno what the answer is. The war on drugs is, we spent over, we spent 80, let’s say since 1973. The, the DEA got started in 73, let’s say. Since that time we’ve, what’s that? 70 something years? Yeah. We’ve done [00:42:00] no, uh, 50, 60. Yeah. 50 something. Yeah. Been 50. We spent a trillion dollars. We spent a trillion dollars. The longest and most expensive war in American history is against its own people. Yeah. Trying to save ’em. I know it’s cra it’s crazy. Yeah, I know. And it, over the years, it just took on this life of its own. Yeah. And believe me, there was a, there’s a whole lot of young guys like you only, didn’t go down the drug path, but you like that action and you like getting those cool cars and doing that cool stuff and, and there’s TV shows about it as part of the culture. And so you’re like, you got this part of this big action thing that’s going on that I, you know, it ain’t right. I, I bigger than all of us. I don’t know. I know. All I like to say I had long hair and some New Orleans old man said to me when I was a kid, he goes, you know why you got that long hair boy? And this is 1969. Yeah, 70. I go, why is that [00:43:00] sir? He goes, ’cause the girls like it. The girls didn’t like it. You wouldn’t have it. I thought about it. I’m trying to be a hippie. I was all this, you know, rebel. I thought about it. I go, boy, he’s probably right. Comes down to sex. Especially a young boy. Well, I mean, I’m 15 years old. I may not even how you look. Yeah. I’m not, listen, at 15, I probably was only getting a second base on a whim, you know? Yeah. But, but they paid attention to you. Yeah. Back in those days you, you know, second base was a lot. Yeah. Really. I remember. Sure. Not as, not as advanced as they are today. I don’t think so. But anyway, that’s my story. Um, all right, Ken b this has been fun. It’s been great. I I really had a lot of fun talking to you. And the book is 1, 1, 1 took over the line. No one, no, no. That’s a Friday slip. One step over that. But that was what I came up with the name. I, I believe you, I heard that song. Yeah. I go, I know, I’m, I’ve just taken one step over the line. So that’s where the book actually one step over the line confessions of a marijuana mercenary. [00:44:00] And I’ll tell you, if your listeners go to my website, one step over the line.com, go to the tile that says MP three or the tile that says digital on that website. Put in the code one, the number one step, and then the number 100. So one step 100, they can get a free, they can download a free copy. Yeah, I got you. Okay. Okay. I appreciate it. That’d be good. Yeah, they’ll enjoy it. Yeah. And on the website there’s pictures of the boats, the planes. Yeah. The runways the weed the, all the pictures are there, family pictures, whatever. Well, you had a, uh, a magical, quite a life, the kinda life that they, people make movies about and everybody watches them and says, oh, wow, that’s really cool. But they didn’t have to do it. They didn’t have to pay that price. No. Most of the people think, the funny thing is a lot of people think I’m, I’m, I’m lying or I’m exaggerating. Yeah. I’m 68 years old. Yeah. There’s no reason for me to lie. And you know, the DEA is, I’m telling that. I’m just telling it the way it [00:45:00] happened. I have no reason to tell Phish stories at this point in my life. No, I believe it. No, no, no. It’s all true. All I’ve been, I’ve been around to a little bit. I, I could just talk to you and know that you’re telling the truth here I am. So, it’s, it’s a great story and Ken, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you for having me. It’s been a very much a, it is been a real pleasure. It’s, it’s nice to talk to someone that knows both sides of the coin. Okay. Take care. Uh, thanks again. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

This week, we're honored to welcome Justin Tucker from the North Carolina Outward Bound School. Growing up as a city kid in Baltimore, Justin's path seemed set: fashion industry, New York City life, the whole nine yards. But after losing a close friend, something shifted. That grief led him to a trailhead in the Bronx, and that first hike sparked a transformation that would reshape his entire life.Justin takes us through his remarkable journey from fashion professional to Appalachian Trail through-hiker to wilderness educator. He describes that pivotal moment on the AT when he met two fellow hikers who planted a seed: the realization that he, too, could attempt something extraordinary. That encounter, combined with the pandemic's forced reset, gave him the push he needed to spend six months walking from Georgia to Maine, ultimately discovering his calling with Outward Bound.In this episode, we explore the unique world of guiding students through the Florida Everglades (a first for Inspire Campfire). We discuss the profound transformations that happen when young people step outside their comfort zones, the magic of the solo experience, and how Justin's own journey from concrete jungle to mangrove tunnels mirrors the growth he now facilitates in others. Join us for an inspiring conversation about finding purpose through wilderness, the healing power of nature, and what it truly means to become comfortable being uncomfortable.

In this episode of the Gamechangers Podcast, live from the College of Communications, Architecture+Arts at FIU (Carta.fiu.edu), Sergio Tigera sits down with Ana Maria Rodriguez, Chair of the Miami-Dade Legislative Delegation and Florida State Senator, for a powerful conversation on service, resilience, communication, and legacy.Born and raised in Miami-Dade County, Senator Rodriguez shares her unexpected journey from community service and healthcare advocacy to local government, the Florida House, and now the Florida Senate. She opens up about overcoming imposter syndrome, blocking out the noise, and leading with purpose—even when the spotlight isn't guaranteed.In this episode, we explore:Why service—not titles—is the foundation of authentic leadershipHow mentorship can completely change your life's trajectoryThe importance of communication in public service and leadershipMental fortitude, resilience, and blocking out naysayersEnvironmental leadership in the Florida Keys, Everglades & Biscayne BayWorkforce housing, coral reef restoration & nature-based solutionsRaising future leaders through example, not positionHer personal leadership motto: “It's nice to be important, but more important to be nice”

This week we're bringing you a series of five episodes we always point to when people ask what Second Act Stories is all about. These "Unbelievable All-Stars" all have one thing in common: they exemplify what we're looking for in an incredible Second Act Story. Whether you're a longtime listener or brand new to the show, these episodes bring together the stories that best capture the heart of the podcast: bold choices, hard-earned wisdom, and journeys that continue to surprise and inspire. Amy Siewe is the quintessential embodiment of how passion drives a second act. She left a safe and lucrative career as a real estate broker to hunt pythons in the Everglades. She proudly shares that she's 5' 4", 120 lbs., and captures pythons as big as 180 lbs. by physically jumping on them and wrestling them into submission. This is what pure passion looks like. In this fascinating episode, Amy shares what motivated her to leave a relatively safe career selling real estate to become The Python Huntress. In this wild ride, she shares how she became so interested in snakes, unbelievable accounts of actual hunts, how she built a business out of hunting pythons, why her role is necessary, and which of her two careers is more stressful. Follow Amy Siewe, The Python Huntress, on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. ******* If you enjoy Second Act Stories, please leave us a review here. We may read your review on a future episode! Subscribe to the Second Act stories Substack. Check out the Second Act Stories YouTube channel. Follow Second Act Stories on social media: Facebook LinkedIn Instagram Second Act Stories theme music: "Between 1 and 3 am" by Echoes.

On tonight's program: Governor DeSantis faces his final legislative session as governor starting next week. And there could be some serious headwinds for the governor and his agenda; A once greatly-respected advocate against domestic violence pleads no contest to multiple felony charges; Governor DeSantis has some thoughts about state regulation of AI; While AI platforms like ChapGPT can have many positive aspects, there are also dangers; And environmental advocates say there are solid reasons why there are regulations regarding fragile places like Florida's Everglades.

Liesa and Russell Priddy's JB Ranch was the winner of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association Environmental Stewardship Award for Region 2 in 2023. Most of us don't associate South Florida with cattle and predator conflicts. But the Priddys were the first to document confirmed panther kills of cattle in the region, and the growing panther population just north of the Everglades has caused local ranchers to begin taking stock of how to protect livestock where there are panthers in the pasture. Listen to learn about this unique environment surrounding the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and the ups and downs of ranching and critical environmental stewardship between the swamp and the hyper-urbanized Florida coast. The Art of Range Podcast is supported by the Idaho Rangeland Resources Commission; Vence, a subsidiary of Merck Animal Health; and the Western Extension Risk Management Education Center. Go to the episode page at https://artofrange.com/episodes/aor-174-florida-panthers-and-tough-cattle-rancher-liesa-priddy for a full transcript and links to resources mentioned in this interview.

In this episode of Murder in the Black, hosts Steph and Maia tell the story of Erica Vassel, a vibrant 21-year-old from Clewiston, Florida, whose life was cut short just days after Super Bowl Sunday in February 2011.Known as America's Sweetest Town, Clewiston sits on the edge of the Everglades, surrounded by sugar cane fields and built on familiarity and trust. But when Erica failed to come home, that sense of safety quickly unraveled.Steph and Maia walk listeners through who Erica was before she became a headline — a young woman full of color, ambition, and promise — and then carefully unfold the events surrounding her disappearance, the rumors that flooded her small community, and the investigation that followed. As detectives chased leads, a burner phone, and conflicting stories, the truth ultimately emerged through a shocking confession.This episode also explores the cultural and spiritual concept of “root work”, how belief systems can be misunderstood or weaponized, and the dangerous consequences when fear overrides accountability.Through reflection, this case challenges us to consider trust, vigilance, and how even familiar places can hold hidden dangers.The life and legacy of Erica VasselHer disappearance and discovery in Clewiston, FloridaHow rumors and community speculation can complicate investigationsThe role of belief systems in criminal confessionsThe dangers of misplaced fear and controlThe importance of community awareness and accountabilityA family's fight for truth and justiceMissing persons • Community trust • Violence in familiar spaces • Cultural misunderstanding • Accountability • Vigilance • JusticeThis episode invites listeners to reflect on personal safety, community responsibility, and how easily danger can be overlooked when it hides behind familiarity.

From a decades-old environmental clash to a centennial art celebration, a quirky state bird debate and a frosty escape, "Florida Matters Live & Local" guests touch on our state's history, culture and more.Call: 813-755-6562Message: FloridaMatters@wusf.orgWebsite: https://www.wusf.orgSign up for our daily newsletter: https://www.wusf.org/wakeupcall-newsletterFollow us on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WUSFInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/wusfpublicmedia/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsN1ZItTKcJ4AGsBIni35gg

Dr. Randy Blakely is a Professor of Biomedical Science at Florida Atlantic University and Executive Director of the Florida Atlantic University Brain Institute. Randy is examining how neurons control neurotransmitter signaling, as well as how medicinal drugs and drugs of abuse impact neurotransmitters. He is interested in how normal neurotransmitter regulation and changes in neurotransmission due to drugs ultimately impact behavior. Randy lives in beautiful South Florida near the Everglades, and he likes to spend is free time enjoying nature and observing the local wildlife. While commuting between campuses, Randy listens to a variety of audiobooks, and he is also a big fan of Americana and folk music. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Emory University and his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He next conducted postdoctoral research at the Yale/Howard Hughes Medical Institute Center for Molecular Neuroscience. Randy was an investigator and faculty member at Emory University and Vanderbilt University before accepting his current position at Florida Atlantic University. Randy is the recipient of numerous awards and honors for his research and mentorship. He was awarded the Daniel Efron Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, two Distinguished Investigator Awards from the Brain and Behavioral Research Foundation, a MERIT Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, a Zenith Award from the Alzheimer's Association, the Delores C. Shockley Partnership Award in recognition of minority trainee mentorship, as well as the Astellas Award in Translational Pharmacology and the Julius Axelrod Award both from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. In addition, he is a Fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. Randy joins us in this episode to talk more about his life and science.

Long-time BAOS BrewHeads would be familiar with the fact that Miami, Florida is one of our favourite cities on the planet, so when the opportunity came up to connect with a legendary Miami brewery, you already know we jumped at it. Marketing Manager Stefano Medina, CEO Luis Brignoni, and Head Brewer Mauricio "Mori" Arratia of The Tank joined Cee to chat about their amazing beer histories (including Luis' iconic Wynwood Brewing business), why they choose to make crushable, approachable beers, their focus on the local Florida market, the full rebrand and repositioning of The Tank, their charity work including their 5k beer run, their partnership with The Alliance for Florida's National Parks to help the Everglades, and the Thanksgiving food drive, the importance of their community and how the beer represents it, the real people in Miami vs what you see online, how they work with other breweries, their take on the THC market, and the dedication and loyalty of their team to the business. They got into the three rebranded flagships - La Playita Pilsner, Shark Valley IPA, and Freedom Tower American Amber Ale. This was a banger - cheers! BAOS Podcast Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube | Website | Theme tune: Cee - BrewHeads

On this episode of The Great Outdoors, Charlie Potter shares details surrounding the billion dollar Christmas present the Everglades are set to receive. Plus Charlie talks about the loss of bird habitat in the Mississippi Delta.

Sam Root is a content creator in the fishing industry and a key part of the team at Pure Fishing — one of the biggest fishing companies on the planet. We go way back (forums, early DSLR days, the first years of Saltwater Experience), and in this conversation we get into what's actually changed in fishing media… and what hasn't. We talk about the death of gatekeeping, why attention spans are getting weird (3 seconds or 3 hours), why polished “commercial-looking” videos often underperform, how AI is already changing photo/video work, and the wild travel stories that remind you fishing is fishing — whether you're in the Everglades or 30 hours from the nearest runway. Some of the moments I found most meaningful in this conversation were: The gatekeeping is gone — and that's a blessing and a whole new kind of grind. High-end production can actually hurt performance because people can smell an ad in half a second. New product hype sells… until it doesn't — credibility is what carries the long game. AI is powerful, but the “soulless” stuff gets blocked fast (and I'm with him on that). The Everglades might be the best “short trip” fishing on earth — but the sharks have changed the whole release game. 00:00 Introduction + “Apollo Beach Sam” 02:05 How we first met (forums, early show days) 06:10 Gatekeeping is dead — and what replaced it 10:35 3 seconds vs 3 hours (attention span whiplash) 14:10 How Sam ended up at Pure Fishing (and what he does) 18:15 What actually sells product now (and why “polished” can flop) 23:40 YouTube/shorts vs longform — and how channels get confused 28:55 Travel fishing: Indonesia, Seychelles, Amazon, Argentina 37:40 The “sketchy mothership” story (28 hours back in a storm) 41:30 Weirdest food: sea turtle eggs + coconut crabs 46:10 AI in fishing content (Nano Banana + photo fixes) 52:15 Sharks in the Everglades/Keys — what's happening? 58:05 Rapid fire: best, worst, strangest, bucket list 01:02:10 Where to find Sam + closing

In this episode of the HuntFishTravel Podcast, I sit down with Amy Siewe, better known as The Python Huntress. Amy is a professional python hunter working on the front lines of conservation in Florida, helping remove one of the most destructive invasive species in North America. We talk about how she went from real estate broker to full-time python hunter, what it's actually like to hunt massive snakes in the wild, and why this work is so critical to protecting native wildlife in the Everglades. We dive deep into how Burmese pythons ended up in Florida in the first place, the impact they've had on native mammals and ecosystems, what a real python hunt looks like, from spotlighting roads at night to catching snakes by hand, the largest python Amy has ever caught and a wild story to go with it, and how python hunting ties directly into scientific research and conservation. This episode is fascinating, intense, occasionally jaw-dropping (I probably said "bananas" way too many times to count), and deeply rooted in responsible conservation. Amy's respect for wildlife and the Everglades comes through loud and clear and I walked away with a whole new understanding of just how serious the python problem really is. Whether you're a hunter, angler, conservationist, or just someone who loves wild stories from the field, this is an episode you don't want to miss. Learn more or book a hunt: pythonhuntress.com Follow Amy's adventures: @thepythonhuntress on Instagram and @pythonhuntress on Facebook. Timestamps: 00:00 – 01:24 – Opening intro & setting the Everglades scene 01:24 – 02:37 – Meet Amy Siewe, The Python Huntress 02:37 – 04:05 – How Amy became a professional python hunter 04:05 – 05:48 – From thrill-seeking to conservation mission 05:48 – 07:16 – How Burmese pythons invaded Florida 07:16 – 08:47 – Population explosion & lack of predators 08:47 – 10:22 – How big pythons get (and how dangerous they could be) 10:22 – 12:18 – What pythons eat & ecosystem collapse 12:18 – 14:17 – Why the Everglades are the perfect python habitat 14:17 – 15:55 – How python hunts actually work 15:55 – 16:18 – Catching pythons by hand 16:18 – 17:30 – Spotting snakes at night 17:30 – 24:46 – The 17-foot, 110-pound python story 24:46 – 26:39 – Why live capture is necessary 26:39 – 29:07 – Research, data, and working with biologists 29:07 – 30:44 – Hair-raising moments in the field 30:44 – 31:39 – Licensing, legality, and invasive species rules 31:39 – 33:29 – Ethics, conservation, and respecting wildlife 33:29 – 35:25 – Booking a hunt & following Amy online 35:25 – 36:03 – Final thoughts & wrap-up  

A new documentary explores how author and activist Marjory Stoneman Douglas transformed how we think about the Everglades.

Dave and Chuck the Freak talk about lentil tacos with vegan cheese, woman approached emailer and complimented her feet at Walmart, dad and son trapped in Everglades, man was hiding in trunk of Waymo, woman went into labor in Waymo, kid trapped in port-a-potty, Los Angeles cone king, Chuck’s digestive issues, update on UofM and Sharrone Moore, Joe Jonas seen taking 7 minutes to parallel park, Grindr’s year in review, Leslie Nielsen buried with fart machine, Dick Van Dyke countdown clock, Power Ball, old man fired gun at shopper, woman seen walking pantsless on sidewalk, big ladies get into chicken fight, man’s wife’s BF shot him, woman was deceptively recorded at gym, armpit porn on the rise, what spiked on your fetish list this year?, Jason made a man leak, Ask Dave & Chuck The Freak, he has crush on wife’s sister-in-law, buddy’s GF mad at him for leaving coke in car, wife gave expensive bottle of booze at holiday party, and more!

Dave and Chuck the Freak talk about lentil tacos with vegan cheese, woman approached emailer and complimented her feet at Walmart, dad and son trapped in Everglades, man was hiding in trunk of Waymo, woman went into labor in Waymo, kid trapped in port-a-potty, Los Angeles cone king, Chuck's digestive issues, update on UofM and Sharrone Moore, Joe Jonas seen taking 7 minutes to parallel park, Grindr's year in review, Leslie Nielsen buried with fart machine, Dick Van Dyke countdown clock, Power Ball, old man fired gun at shopper, woman seen walking pantsless on sidewalk, big ladies get into chicken fight, man's wife's BF shot him, woman was deceptively recorded at gym, armpit porn on the rise, what spiked on your fetish list this year?, Jason made a man leak, Ask Dave & Chuck The Freak, he has crush on wife's sister-in-law, buddy's GF mad at him for leaving coke in car, wife gave expensive bottle of booze at holiday party, and more!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Aaron reacts to Erika Kirk's emotional plea to stop the conspiracy harassment three months after Charlie's murder, Candace Owens doubles down anyway, President Trump seizes a massive Venezuelan oil tanker in dramatic escalation, takes a border-security victory lap, Susie Wiles confirms Trump will barnstorm the country for the 2026 midterms, Fed cuts rates again, Utah Governor Spencer Cox gushes over Josh Shapiro for president, and a father-son Everglades rescue as the gators circle.   Erika Kirk, Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, Venezuela oil tanker, Trump 2026, mass deportation victory, border security, Federal Reserve rate cut, Spencer Cox, Josh Shapiro, Everglades rescue

Wednesday, December 10th, 2025Today, Trump plans a $12B bailout for farmers after the fallout from his failed trade war; the DC Circuit Court of Appeals sides with Kegseth on the transgender military ban; detainees at the Everglades concentration camp were tortured according to a new report from Amnesty International; Hondurans issue an arrest warrant for their drug trafficking ex-president that Trump pardoned; Congress is going to withhold Kegseth's travel budget until he releases the full September 2nd video; criminal contempt proceedings are underway in Boasberg's courtroom after he orders both Erez Reuveni and Drew Ensign to testify; and Allison and Dana deliver and your Good News.Thank You, HomeChefFor a limited time, get 50% off and free shipping for your first box PLUS free dessert for life! http://HomeChef.com/DAILYBEANS. Must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert.Subscribe to the MSW YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@MSWMediaPodsStonewall Inn Brick Awards - https://stonewallinitiative.org/brick-awards-gala-fundraiserStoriesSupreme Court upholds Trump's ban on transgender military members while appeals continue|NPRhttps://www.npr.org/2025/05/06/nx-s1-5388507/supreme-court-transgender-militaryHonduras Issues Arrest Warrant for Ex-President Pardoned by Trump|NYThttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/world/americas/honduras-hernandez-arrest-warrant.htmlTrump Promises Farmers $12 Billion to Blunt Fallout From His Trade War|NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/us/politics/trump-farmers-aid-bailout.htmlDetainees at ‘Alligator Alcatraz' facing ‘harrowing human rights violations'| The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/04/alligator-alcatraz-human-right-violations-amnesty-reportTrump to invoke wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to carry out deportations to Guantanamo|CBS Newshttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-alien-enemies-act-1798-deportations-guantanamo/Judge orders top DOJ attorney to testify about Alien Enemies Act deportations|ABChttps://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-orders-top-doj-attorney-testify-alien-enemies/story?id=128222048Justice Department faces call for internal probe into legal opinion on Venezuelan boat strikes|CBS neshttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/justice-department-venezuela-boat-strikes-office-of-legal-counsel/Good Trouble - https://near.tl/sm/ik-ZushRaMassachusetts Church Keeps Anti-ICE Nativity Scene, Defying Diocese Leaders - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/us/massachusetts-church-ice-nativity-scene.html If the Leguminati are so inclined, I bet we could remind the Archbishop what Jesus would do. Here is the link:https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/us/massachusetts-church-ice-nativity-scene.htmlhttps://www.bostoncatholic.org/contact-usFrom The Good Newshttps://x.com/PhilNvestigates/status/1998242469985615955?s=20https://www.fs.usda.gov/r09/allegheny/recreation/jakes-rocks-overlookhttps://www.tigerlilytherapy.org/www.courageoussoap.com→Please submit your own at https://DailyBeansPod.com - click on ‘Good News and Good Trouble'Our Donation Linkshttps://www.nationalsecuritylaw.org/donate, https://secure.actblue.com/donate/msw-bwc, http://WhistleblowerAid.org/beansJoin Dana and The Daily Beans and support on Giving Tuesdayhttp://onecau.se/_ekes71Federal workers - email AG at fedoath@pm.me and let me know what you're going to do, or just vent. I'm always here to listen. Dr. Allison Gill - https://muellershewrote.substack.com, https://bsky.app/profile/muellershewrote.com, https://instagram.com/muellershewrote, https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote, https://www.youtube.com/@MSWMediaPodsDana Goldberg - https://bsky.app/profile/dgcomedy.bsky.social, https://twitter.com/DGComedy, https://www.instagram.com/dgcomedy, https://www.facebook.com/dgcomedy, https://danagoldberg.comMore from MSW Media - https://mswmedia.com/shows, Cleanup On Aisle 45 pod, https://muellershewrote.substack.comReminder - you can see the pod pics if you become a Patron. The good news pics are at the bottom of the show notes of each Patreon episode! That's just one of the perks of subscribing! patreon.com/muellershewrote Listener Survey:http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=BffJOlI7qQcF&ver=shortFollow the Podcast on Apple:https://apple.co/3XNx7ckWant to support the show and get it ad-free and early?https://patreon.com/thedailybeanshttps://dailybeans.supercast.com/https://apple.co/3UKzKt0 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is proud to acknowledge that it didn't follow science when recommending a black bear hunt.Our guest this episode is documentary filmmaker Rob Hoovis. In November of 2025, he premiered "Outlaws of the Everglades," a film detailing the marijuana smuggling pipeline from Central America and the Caribbean that flowed through the 10,000 Islands area of rural southwestern Florida during the 1970s and 80s.Our "Florida Black History" YouTube channel has been updated with our past episodes on Fort Mose, Harry and Harriette Moore, and Reconstruction and Freedmen in the state.The next state legislative session is weeks away with the groundwork already being laid in Tallahassee. Jason Garcia's "Seeking Rents" and Ryan Smart and Ryan Worthington's "As Bad As It Is" are the two best podcasts to keep you informed on all the treachery.Nature DisturbedMother Nature is one weird ladyListen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

TOP STORIES - Kristi Noem presents Tampa TSA workers with $10,000 bonus checks, Juan Porras files bill to revamp HOA procedures, USF introduces their new head coach Brian Hartline, a father and son were rescued after getting stranded in the Everglades, and the Golden Globes 2026 nominees have been revealed.

TOP STORIES - Kristi Noem presents Tampa TSA workers with $10,000 bonus checks, Juan Porras files bill to revamp HOA procedures, USF introduces their new head coach Brian Hartline, a father and son were rescued after getting stranded in the Everglades, and the Golden Globes 2026 nominees have been revealed. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode: Pushed by a potential future candidate for governor, Florida lawmakers are working on a bill that would make it easier for the agriculture industry to sue people who criticize its production practices. It could help Florida's politically influential Big Sugar companies attack environmental groups who say the sugar industry has polluted the Everglades. Plus: More bills on the move as Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature gears up for a new legislative session that begins in January.Show notesThe bill's discussed in today's show: Senate Bill 290 — Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (first committee vote) House Bill 167 — Former Phosphate Mining Lands (first committee vote, second committee vote)House Bill 191 — Verification of Reemployment Assistance Benefit Eligibility (first committee vote)House Bill 289 — Civil Liability for the Wrongful Death of an Unborn Child (first committee vote, second committee vote)House Bill 37 — Removal, Storage, and Cleanup of Electric Vehicles (first committee vote, second committee vote)Senate Bill 88 (2021) — Farming Operations (Senate final vote, House final vote)For further reading: Lobbyists for a mining company wrote a bill to block lawsuits over radiation on former mines (Seeking Rents)In Support of Free Speech on Food (article from Penn State Law Review)Publix sought to block electric vehicle rules, records show (Seeking Rents) Prodded by business lobbyists, lawmakers may cut more Floridians off from unemployment insurance (Seeking Rents)Questions or comments? Send ‘em to Garcia.JasonR@gmail.comListen to the show: Apple | SpotifyWatch the show: YouTube Get full access to Seeking Rents at jasongarcia.substack.com/subscribe

SEGMENTS | Orlando Collected Exhibit | Ft. Myers in The Civil War | Abandoned Vehicles of The Everglades

What happens when you're addicted to violence itself? John Graham shipped out on a freighter at 16, made the first ascent of Denali's North Wall at 20 (never repeated), and faced death dozens times—loving every minute. By 28, nothing mattered except his next dangerous adventure. Then came Vietnam. Setting up a firing squad during the 1971 Easter Offensive in Hue, ordering deaths of teenagers, John broke down weeping. Through encounter groups, he discovered the compassionate man beneath his "John Wayne image." At the UN, he used those warrior qualities for good—risking his career to help end apartheid. For 40 years with the Giraffe Heroes Project, he's inspired courage worldwide. "Pick up the corner of the rug you can pick up."John Graham is a leader of the Giraffe Heroes Project, inspiring courage globally for 40 years. A former US Foreign Service Officer for 15 years, he risked his career at the UN to help end apartheid in South Africa. From shipping out on a freighter at 16 to the first ascent of Denali's North Wall at 20, John transformed from adrenaline-addicted adventurer to global peacebuilder—negotiating with the Khmer Rouge, working on Israel/Palestine peace efforts, and saving the Everglades. Author of four books including the memoir "QUEST." Harvard and Stanford graduate.About The Show: The Life in Transition, hosted by Art Blanchford focuses on making the most of the changes we're given every week. Art has been through hundreds of transitions in his life. Many have been difficult, but all have led to a depth and richness he could never have imagined. On the podcast Art explores how to create more love and joy in life, no matter what transitions we go through. Art is married to his lifelong partner, a proud father of three and a long-time adventurer and global business executive. He is the founder and leader of the Midlife Transition Mastery Community. Learn more about the MLTM Community here: www.lifeintransition.online.In This Episode: (00:00) The Firing Squad That Changed Everything(03:11) Vietnam: City of Hue and the Easter Offensive(08:55) Encounter Groups and Finding the Nice Guy(15:21) From Violent Adventurer to UN Peacemaker(19:39) MidLife Transition Mastery Ad(21:39) Double-Crossing the Government to End Apartheid(32:15) Listen to Your Heart—Walk in the Woods(37:20) Meeting Ann Medlock and the Giraffe Heroes Project(41:02) Transition Mastery Coaching Ad(42:47) Who is the Giraffe Project for?(51:17) Breaking Free From False Identity(56:04) Connect With John GrahamLike, subscribe, and send us your comments and feedback.Resources:Personal Website: johngraham.orgGiraffe Heroes Project: giraffe.orgSocial Media: "Badass Granddad" on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube (search "badass granddad" with two D's)Books by John Graham:"QUEST: Risk, Adventure, and the Search for Meaning" (memoir, also available as audiobook)"Stick Your Neck Out: A Street-smart Guide to Creating Change in Your Community and Beyond""Denali Diary" (first-person account of the first ascent of Denali's North Wall)"Outdoor Leadership"Email Art BlanchfordLife in Transition WebsiteLife in Transition on IGLife in Transition on FBJoin Our Community: https://www.lifeintransition.online/My new book PURPOSEFUL LIVING is out now. Order it now: https://www.amazon.com/PURPOSEFUL-LIVING-Wisdom-Coming-Complex/dp/1963913922Explore our website https://lifeintransitionpodcast.com/ for more in-depth information and resources, and to download the 8-step guide to mastering mid-life transitions.The views and opinions expressed on the Life In Transition podcast are solely those of the author and guests and should not be attributed to any other individual or entity. This podcast is an independent production of Life In Transition Podcast, and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2025.

Sunshine, salty breezes, and three incredible Florida national parks in one unforgettable road trip: Everglades, Biscayne, and Dry Tortugas. Ready to chase wildlife, island-hop through the Keys, and discover Florida's wildest surprises in these national parks? Welcome to our 10-day Florida national parks road trip!  In this episode, we cover: A full 10-day road trip that visits Everglades, Biscayne, and Dry Tortugas National Parks Wildlife-packed trails, guided boat tours, and quiet corners of the Everglades you might miss Snorkeling, lighthouses, and the island-party energy of Biscayne and Boca Chita Epic journeys through the Florida Keys on your way to Dry Tortugas The very best spots for manatees, alligators, dolphins, and key lime pie Your task for today: Tell us which park on this Florida road trip you are MOST excited to explore (Everglades, Biscayne, or Dry Tortugas) over on the @DirtInMyShoes Facebook or Instagram page! Don't miss the full show notes packed with all the links we mentioned so you can plan your adventures like a pro: https://www.dirtinmyshoes.com/10-day-florida-national-parks-road-trip/  Planning your own Florida adventure? Episode 6: Everglades Favorites: https://www.dirtinmyshoes.com/episode-6-everglades-favorites/  Episode 7: Everglades Fun Facts: https://www.dirtinmyshoes.com/episode-7-everglades-fun-facts/  Episode 8: Everglades Stories: https://www.dirtinmyshoes.com/episode-8-everglades-stories/  Episode 9: Everglades Trip Planning: https://www.dirtinmyshoes.com/episode-9-everglades-trip-planning/  Episode 58: Exploring Dry Tortugas: https://www.dirtinmyshoes.com/exploring-dry-tortugas/  Episode 59: Dry Tortugas Fun Facts: https://www.dirtinmyshoes.com/5-fun-facts-about-dry-tortugas-national-park/  Master Reservation List: https://www.dirtinmyshoes.com/list/ National Park Checklist: https://www.dirtinmyshoes.com/national-parks-checklist/  Trip Packing List: https://www.dirtinmyshoes.com/pack/

This episode is brought to you by Villa Carina Apartments in beautiful Bonaire. In this episode, we sit down with the newly crowned 2025 E-Foil Surf Foil World Tour (SFT) World Champion – the undefeated e-foil racer who took the title in the season finale in Abu Dhabi.Fresh off dominating the inaugural SFT season, the Florida-based ripper (and Flightboard early adopter) joins us to break down what it actually feels like to turn a five-year hunch into a world championship, how e-foil racing went from “nice idea” to a full-blown global tour in record time, and why this sport is exploding faster than anyone predicted.We go deep on:- From kite-smash accidents to building one of the first e-foil schools in South Florida  - The wild Atlanta Foil Fest Enduro with Brian Grubb, Nick Leeson, and 20 riders dodging submerged trees at full throttle  - Unsanctioned full-send dawn patrols through Amsterdam's canals (don't try this at home)  - Gear geek-out: custom shims, chopped tails, 900 Flow vs 707 Flux wings, aftermarket race props, and why everything is still basically stock… for now  - Why full-face helmets and downhill MTB armor are becoming mandatory at 33–35 mph  - Mental warfare on the beach, prop-wash tactics, hot launches, and pulling 3+G turns  - Traveling the world with boards but no batteries (and how the Flightboard rental network saves the day)  - The massive progression from the first dealer races in 2022 to riders now training full-time and closing the gap second by second  - Where e-foil racing is headed: open-ocean courses, city canal sprints, Everglades gator-chasing, and boards that will eventually hit 50 mph  Year one of the Surf Foil World Tour is in the books, prize money is real, brands are paying attention, and the level is skyrocketing. The champ gives us the unfiltered look at what it took to stay on top — and why 2026 is about to get even crazier.If you've ever wondered what the cutting edge of foiling actually looks, sounds, and feels like… this is it.Follow the Surf Foil Tour → https://www.surffoilworldtour.com Justin Chait → https://www.instagram.com/_justinchait_/

Dietitian Sarah Tee shares ways to enjoy holiday food with balance, and Talbert Cypress of the Miccosukee Tribe reflects on protecting the Everglades, culture, and community.

Rabbi Michael G. Holzman joins Mark Labberton to explore the formation of his Jewish faith, the pastoral realities of congregational life, and the multi-faith initiative he helped launch for the nation's 250th anniversary, Faith 250. He reflects on his early experiences of wonder in the natural world, the mentors who opened Torah to him, and the intellectual humility that shapes Jewish approaches to truth. Their conversation moves through the unexpected depth of congregational ministry, the spiritual and emotional weight of the pandemic, the complexities of speaking about God in contemporary Jewish life, and the role of cross-faith friendships. The episode concludes with Rabbi Holzman's reflections on how the suffering in Israel and Palestine reverberates among Jews and Muslims in America. Episode Highlights "I think we are desperately in need of ways to get Americans to agree that they're in the same community… simply by naming the Declaration of Independence as a piece of shared American scripture… we are inviting people and really challenging ourselves to think about the words in those documents seriously, and prayerfully." "My formation as a child was relatively non-theological… my mother just would sit there and say, 'Do you feel that wind?' And for me, knowing that it was in a national park mattered… being in such a grand and awesome space, under the enormity of the heavens." "The pursuit of truth with epistemic humility really became the cornerstone…if Moses wasn't allowed to see God's face, I'm never gonna see God's face—and yet we are all still pursuing what the meaning of this incredible text is." "I was a little bit unprepared… until you experience it as a pastor, you don't really understand the power of those things. That rootedness in this particular congregation gave me a sense of existential meaning that I didn't anticipate." "The thing that got me through that darkness was Saturday morning Torah study… just being there with the text and with these faces and these people… that to me was my path through the darkness." "When people are sitting over the text, the most palpable experience of God is this moment of understanding another human being… it's so vulnerable and it's so fleeting and it's so beautiful." "There is an experience happening on the ground of absolute suffering and horror on both sides… and there's a parallel experience happening for Jews and Muslims in America. It's powerful, spiritually powerful, emotionally powerful, and to people's core." Helpful Links and Resources Faith 250 https://www.faith250.org/ "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" by Frederick Douglass https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/ "America the Beautiful" by Katherine Lee Bates https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/america-beautiful-1893 I and Thou, Martin Buber https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780684717258/i-and-thou About Rabbi Michael G. Holzman Rabbi Michael G. Holzman is the Senior Rabbi of Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation (NVHC), where he has served since 2010. His work focuses on spiritual formation, civic engagement, multi-faith partnership, and the cultivation of communities grounded in dignity, learning, and ethical responsibility. He founded the Rebuilding Democracy Project, which developed into Faith 250, a national multi-faith initiative preparing communities for the 250th anniversary of the United States through shared reflection on foundational American texts. He teaches and writes on Jewish ethics, civic life, and spiritual resilience. Show Notes Faith 250 American Scripture Faith 250 as a response to political despair and a way for clergy to exercise agency Four core American texts explored as shared scripture across faiths Intent to counter politicization of the 250th anniversary through spiritual depth Multi-faith relationships grounding the initiative in shared civic and moral concern Emphasis on clergy as conveners of spiritually safe, local containers for reading The Declaration, New Colossus, Frederick Douglass, and America the Beautiful as "scriptural" portals to civic meaning "American scripture" as a means of naming shared identity and shared community Jewish Formation and Torah Childhood shaped by nature, wonder, and ethical awareness rather than synagogue life Early encounters with the Everglades as formative experiences of spirit and awe Discovery of Torah study as a young adult across Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform settings Epistemic humility as a defining mark of Jewish study practice Pursuit of truth understood through the "through a glass darkly" frame of Moses Torah received "through the hand of Moses" as mediating truth and mystery Chevruta (paired study) as the engine of discovery, disagreement, and meaning Pastoral Life and Congregational Meaning Surprised by the depth of pastoral work: weddings, funerals, life-cycle passages Intimacy of congregational leadership as a source of meaning rather than tedium Congregational relationships forming an existential and vocational anchor The role of community support during family medical crises How decades-long pastoral presence shapes shared covenantal life Teaching 12- and 13-year-olds to encounter the text as spiritual practice The power of intergenerational relationships in spiritual resilience Pandemic and Spiritual Survival Early months of 2020 as a time of fear, isolation, and emotional strain Counseling families whose loved ones were dying without visitors Previous experience with depression creating early warning signals Telehealth therapy as a critical intervention Saturday morning Torah study on Zoom becoming the path through darkness Growth of the study community throughout the pandemic Predictable humor and shared reading as markers of communal stability Textuality, God-Language, and Jewish Hesitations Jewish discomfort speaking explicitly about God for theological and cultural reasons Layers of humility, anti-mysticism, differentiation from Christianity, and historical experience Sacredness and mystery of the scroll growing in the digital age Physicality of the Torah scroll attracting deeper attention and reverence Hebrew as a source of multivalent meaning, sonic power, and spiritual resonance Reading together as the most common encounter with God: understanding another's soul Pastoral awareness of individuals' life stories shaping group study dynamics Cross-Faith Devotion and Shared Honor Friendships with Muslim, Christian, and Hasidic leaders deepening spiritual insight Devotion in others sparking awe rather than defensiveness Disagreement becoming a site of connection rather than separation Devotion in other traditions prompting self-reflection on one's own commitments Stories of praying with and learning from ultra-Orthodox leaders Shared pursuit of truth across tradition lines as a form of civic and spiritual honor American religious diversity offering unprecedented exposure to sincere piety Israel, Gaza, and American Jewish Experience Suffering, fear, and horror experienced by Israelis and Palestinians Parallel emotional and spiritual pressures faced by Jews and Muslims in America Concern about political manipulation of community trauma Generational trauma and its transmission, including Holocaust-era family stories Emotional resonance of global conflict in local congregational life Distinction and connection between geopolitical realities and American spiritual experience Call to honor emotional realities across neighborhoods and communities Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.  

Everglades National Park Mysteries and DisappearancesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/missing-persons-mysteries--5624803/support.

In place of our regular Hudson Mohawk Magazine programing, today we share this episode of The Aunties Dandelion podcast called “Auntie Betty Osceola, Miccosukee, Panther Clan." Betty Osceola (Miccosukee, Panther Clan) grounds us in the spectacular land and life of the Everglades in this visit with host Kahstoserakwathe. She explains how the region's natural filtration system protects fresh water for millions, carries cultural memory for the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, and sustains plant, animal, and water relatives. Betty is well known for her prayer walks that became especially urgent when the cruelty of the “Alligator Alcatraz” outdoor immigrant detention camp surfaced last summer on traditional homelands in South Florida, and her research is instrumental in ongoing lawsuits around the facility. She says our struggle for equitable treatment cannot be separated from the health and well-being of the natural world. Betty spent decades living what environmental justice looks like from an Indigenous perspective: caring for water as kin, community mobilization as a responsibility, and finding joy in walking, guiding, laughing, and listening. She asks us to consider how we reconnect to our own sources of care and to show up when the land says it needs us. This conversation is a clear invitation to walk our lands and raise our voices to protect the natural world and the humanity of our hearts. Stay to the end for her cute stories about mama ‘gators and their babies.

My guest this week is Captain Dan Andrews [37:51], co-founder and CEO of Captains for Clean Water, one of Orvis' most trusted conservation partners. Orvis has been aligned with this grass roots group since their inception and it's been a valuable partnership. Dan tells us what is going on with the Everglades restoration project, what progress has been made, how it has affected the fisheries, and current threats to progress. He is also very optimistic about this winter's fishing conditions in Florida and looks into his crystal ball to predict how fishing will be in various regions of the Florida Coast this year. If you live in Florida or spend time visiting there during the winter you'll want to listen to this one. In the Fly Box this week, we have some great questions and tips, including: -Do you think it's worth it to fish bugs on a marginal river with a lower fish count, or should you focus on covering water with a streamer? -Should I get my 14-year-old grandson a fiberglass or graphite rod for Christmas? -Why does the industry seem to push loop connections on fly lines? I had a problem with a loop system hanging up in the guides. Shouldn't people spend more time learning the blood knot or surgeon's knot? -Brian Fleshig and the late Flip Pallot recommend cutting the permanent loop off a fly line and replacing it with a nail knot. What do you do? -A listener who had great luck finding pinhole leaks in his waders using a flashlight. -For small stream fishing, should I get an 8/12 foot Clearwater of a 7'11" Superfine? -Will brass beads instead of tungsten allow a fly to drift more naturally in the current? -How would you deal with a couple anglers who high-holed you on a steelhead river? -I think I saw PMDs on a river in late October. Is that possible? What affects the hatch timing of mayflies? -How do you know when you have too much weight when tightline nymphing? -When fishing nymphs in deep water, why do the smaller fish get off easier but the bigger fish stay hooked?

Jim and Dar dive into NASA's much-hyped 3I/Atlas press conference and the “new information” may leave you with more questions than answers. They break it all down, as well as, what Avi Loeb had to say afterward that NASA didn't address. Then, the saga of the Conjuring House takes another wild turn as someone snags the underlying mortgage, sparking even more competition and confusion around the infamous property. Senator Marco Rubio adds fuel to the UFO transparency debate with striking comments about whistleblowers, a new scientific theory about why extraterrestrials might be ignoring us, celebrity confessions about Roswell, more moon-landing doubts and a so-called “bra demon” caught in a mirror photo. Plus, a Florida skunk ape hunter, a haunted doll that may have cursed a rock legend, and a debate over what you can or can't dream round out this jam packed episode. Thanks so much for listening/watching and please the share the show! LINKS https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-to-share-comet-3i-atlas-images-from-spacecraft-telescopes/ https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/3i-atlas/ https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/youtuber-buys-mortgage-conjuring-house-204804892.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-conjuring-house https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/ufo-whistleblower-deserve-serious-investigation-rubio/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15284367/Five-things-you-NEVER-dream-phone.html https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/aliens-bored-radical-mundanity https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/roswell-native-demi-moore-thinks-010648498.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAH5Aja9T4X8wmFLUCpF5M-GRGgcUmx7Mqh5UuBNzQAvjIz2OaduzLgj0aoP_6on0othyZgQ3xmd0Gg2Z5NFYEEblXCESnrQPlTph-8O1eGHn0CrojSN-KWmva7Y5b4hSbTAi8Y_z_gJnl6pGDtCuhh4R3F2uZBOkUuXhH06zKt1r&guccounter=2 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15280359/Ive-spent-life-hunting-real-life-monster-Everglades-heres-truth-Florida-Bigfoot.html https://people.com/tiffany-haddish-doesnt-believe-1969-moon-landing-happened-thinks-people-living-there-11848649?hid=e625342da28cb0344dad623f5a8028b80fa850a0&did=20402112-20251113&utm_source=ppl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ppl-news-alert_newsletter&utm_content=111325&lctg=e625342da28cb0344dad623f5a8028b80fa850a0&lr_input=6ce3ca21ff82a668d70361948ec50e7252e77f02f737b4545107c602bcb3b8db&campaign=15678483 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/lifestyle/article-15300377/Ghost-whisperer-spirit-presence-house-haunted-signs.html https://radaronline.com/p/ozzy-osbourne-cursed-infamous-haunted-doll-paranormal-florida-item/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Betty Osceola (Miccosukee, Panther Clan) grounds us in the spectacular land and life of the Everglades in this visit with host Kahstoserakwathe. She explains how the region's natural filtration system protects fresh water for millions, carries cultural memory for the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, and sustains plant, animal, and water relatives.Betty is well known for her prayer walks that became especially urgent when the cruelty of the “Alligator Alcatraz” outdoor immigrant detention camp surfaced last summer on traditional homelands in South Florida, and her research is instrumental in ongoing lawsuits around the facility. She says our struggle for equitable treatment cannot be separated from the health and well-being of the natural world.Betty spent decades living what environmental justice looks like from an Indigenous perspective: caring for water as kin, community mobilization as a responsibility, and finding joy in walking, guiding, laughing, and listening. She asks us to consider how we reconnect to our own sources of care and to show up when the land says it needs us. This conversation is a clear invitation to walk our lands and raise our voices to protect the natural world and the humanity of our hearts. Stay to the end for her cute stories about mama ‘gators and their babies. Key Takeaways from Our Conversation with Betty Osceola1. The Everglades is a living relative, not a resource.Betty reminds us that the River of Grass is alive, speaking, and essential for the fresh water that sustains millions of people. Protecting it is not just an environmental act; it is a kinship responsibility. The "river" is a slow-moving sheet of water, full of swamp grasses, that flows from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay, moving only about a quarter-mile per day.2. Ceremony is a form of resistance.Through prayer walks and gatherings, Betty and her community practice ceremony as a form of activism. Each step, song, and offering re-centers human presence within a network of life that has been disrupted by extraction and control.3. Alligator Alcatraz is part of a larger pattern.Betty describes the proposed detention facility as one more example of how industrial and political systems see Indigenous land as empty or disposable. Her organizing through prayer, education, and direct presence helped bring national attention and legal action to pause construction.4. Environmental justice and Indigenous rights are inseparable.The conversation links the Miccosukee Tribe's struggle for full federal recognition with the broader movement to restore balance between governance, ecology, and Indigenous sovereignty. Justice begins when Indigenous knowledge leads.5. Joy and community are forms of survival.Even amid ongoing fights for land and water, Betty's stories centre laughter, family, and collective prayer. Joy is not a distraction from struggle; it is what keeps the work alive.Photo by Lisette Morales, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Johan Betancourt of Miami Ransom Everglades talks about how he made the program to change the balance of being an education-first first to more of a balanced approach to become a major school for it's athletic program.

Mysteries and Disappearances from Everglades National Park FloridaBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/missing-persons-mysteries--5624803/support.

Recently Governor DeSantis announced a huge step forward with the Everglades Restoration Plan with the groundbreaking of the new inflow pump station as part of the EAA Reservoir project which is aimed at permanently ending harmful east-west discharges out of Lake Okeechobee. Two of the southern reservoirs with the EAA project have been completed and the final key piece that will be central to sending effectively all water south into the Everglades, which is the natural flow. 

These stories gave me chills, and there are many more like them out there. When Flight 401 crashed into the Everglades, it happened due to a tiny, simple mistake. And those who died were seen again.

In this episode of Midwest Mythos, host Ryley announces a hiatus for the podcast while discussing exciting future plans with guest Alex Petakov, a filmmaker and cryptid researcher. The conversation delves into the world of cryptids, particularly Bigfoot, and the importance of inspiring audiences to explore nature. They share field experiences, including strange audio phenomena and wildlife encounters, emphasizing the unpredictability of nature and the potential dangers it presents. The episode concludes with reflections on human encounters in the wilderness and the need for safety measures during outdoor adventures. In this conversation, Aleks Petakov and Ryley discuss their experiences in the wilderness, particularly in the Everglades, where they encounter strange situations and people. They share stories of unexpected events, the risks associated with exploring remote areas, and the importance of being prepared. The discussion also touches on the nature of encounters with mysterious creatures, the significance of curiosity in these experiences, and the value of community engagement in their projects. They conclude with insights into upcoming projects and the importance of safety in outdoor adventures.Alaskan Coastal Sasquatch : https://youtu.be/kjLLHL7GouQ?si=6LRFJqQY_f81NcKmAleks Links: https://petakovmedia.com/linktr.ee/AleksPetakovMY LINKS :https://youtube.com/@midwestmythospodcast?si=f5qXsiJuuWv4-hqEhttps://www.tiktok.com/@midwest_mythos is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pchttps://www.instagram.com/midwestmythos/If you would like to be a guest on the show contact me on the submission form at: linktr.ee/midwestmythospodcast or contact me on Instagram @midwestmythosThank you for all the support!

Send us a textA classroom can be a launchpad for climate action when reading meets real life. We sit down with Miami-area educator Catherine Manfra to explore how English language arts becomes a powerful space for climate literacy, creative expression, and student agency—especially in a region living with hurricanes, sea-level rise, and rapid development at the edge of the Everglades.Catherine walks us through her Earth Day unit anchored by Hope Jahren's The Story of More and climate-focused poetry, showing how accessible science writing invites teens into complex topics without overwhelming them. From lunchroom showcases to one-minute PSAs, her students translate facts into story, practice tight writing and media literacy, and share concrete steps that counter defeatism. We also unpack how giving students information and choice sparks deeper research, community involvement, and everyday action.Beyond the classroom, we highlight the Stories-To-Live-By collective, a statewide network of teachers and researchers crafting place-based, multimodal approaches to climate education while navigating book bans and shifting policies. Catherine shares how the group's workshops and shared resources build confidence. She also talks about how the Fairchild Challenge debate strengthens ELA standards, STEM integration, and civic discourse by asking students to argue multiple sides of timely environmental issues. It's a hopeful blueprint for educators who want rigorous, inclusive climate literacies that prepare young people for a just, livable future.If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a review with your favorite climate literacy text or project idea. Your feedback helps us bring more teacher-tested practices to more classrooms.Catherine is a Florida native. Born in Hialeah, a suburb of Miami with a predominantly Hispanic community, she now lives in the Kendall area just south of Miami. She has seen Miami-Dade County continue to expand westward since her childhood, including encroachment on the Florida Everglades. The Florida Everglades are ecologically significant in their role as a subtropical wilderness, a habitat for many threatened and endangered species, and a provider of flood control, water filtration, and freshwater supply for millions of people. She became a part of the Stories-To-Live-By project by answering an initial online survey of teachers who incorporate environmental topics into their curriculum. After teaching all levels of high school English in public schools in Miami-Dade County for 22 years, Catherine now teaches at Palmer Trinity School, an independent private school. Additionally, Catherine is a part of the Junior League of Miami, a women's group that serves and focuses on women's and children's issues in the community from education to safety. To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2025, Oct 14). A Stories-To-Live-By Conversation with Catherine Manfra. (Season 6, No. 4) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/33A8-951D-21CD-B5CE-9F8A-BConnect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Few names are as synonymous with wild Florida as Clyde Butcher. Known for his striking black and white large-format photography, Clyde has spent decades capturing the soul of Florida's landscapes, from the ghostly cypress swamps of Big Cypress National Preserve to the vast wetlands of the Everglades. In this episode, I sit down with Clyde in Venice to talk about his story, beginning to end, and what it truly means to see Florida, not just look at it. We spend quite a bit of time reflecting on his early years, his shift from architectural focus and sailing to Florida's swamps, and how personal tragedy and rediscovery changed his relationship with the land and lens.This conversation also explores how Clyde's photography became a tool for conservation and education, the quiet stillness of the swamp, the changing face of Florida's wild places, and the role of art in helping people reconnect with nature. Whether you've stood in front of one of Clyde's mural-sized prints or are just discovering his work, this episode is not only inspiration, but a reminder of why wild Florida is worth protecting and what we stand to lose if we don't. Links:Clyde Butcher Official WebsiteBig Cypress GalleryClyde Butcher's Florida Gallery in VeniceFollow Clyde Butcher on InstagramFlorida Wildlife Corridor FoundationJoin Us at the Lake Wales Ridge Fire FestIf you'd like to learn more about prescribed fire and the experts that make them happen, join us at the Lake Wales Ridge Fire Fest on November 8th, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM at Highlands Hammock State Park in Sebring, Florida. We'll be hosting a live podcast recording and expert panel featuring Elysia and other leaders in fire ecology.Learn more here: https://www.archbold-station.org/events/fire-fest-2025/

“There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth; remote, never wholly known. Nothing anywhere else is like them…”  In this episode of Parkography, we explore Everglades National Park and the incredible life of Marjory Stoneman Douglas.  Find the  Slinky Stove that's right for your next adventure at: https://www.slinkystove.com/?ref=PARKography Join the PARKography Facebook group to discuss this episode and more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/parkography

Use our code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/VIEWS10  Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount Get 20% off your first Mood order with promo code "VIEWS." https://mood.com On today's podcast David, Jason and Natalie talk about their recent trip to MIami, hitting the world's best strip club and hanging out with Steve Aoki. Also, what it takes to make in F1, David's secret hotel hack, Jason visits one of Hollywood coolest places and hunting snakes in the Everglades. And a little later David tells a wild story about a paparazzi telling him off, how an Oscar winner ruined David's night and how revenge is a dish best never served. Listen to Jason's latest pod here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ShDWaTr1nxSBi16ecCRoM?si=hREAehQMSVK9rgdnXUoXEA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Nona Boss from Florida joins the show at the Ozark Mountain Bigfoot Conference camp out to share her riveting encounters with Bigfoot. Nonna recounts her initial interest sparked by Leonard Nimoy's show 'In Search Of', leading to a life of extraordinary sightings. She details her first Bigfoot encounter in 1986 while snake hunting in the Everglades, a later peaceful daylight sighting in 2022, and other intriguing experiences, including a terrifying rock-throwing incident and mysterious missing time in the North Georgia Mountains.Throughout, Nona discusses the complexities of Bigfoot research, the connection between Bigfoot and other paranormal phenomena, and her balanced perspective between flesh-and-blood and high strangeness theories.The Nonna Boss YouTube ChannelGet Our FREE NewsletterGet Brian's Books Leave Us A VoicemailVisit Our WebsiteSupport Our Sponsors00:00 Welcome and Introduction 00:20 First Encounter with Bigfoot 03:43 Son's Experience and Family Investigation 06:14 Daytime Sighting and Reflection 08:08 Analyzing the Nighttime Sighting 14:32 Exploring Other Experiences 18:13 The Mysterious Wet Rocks Incident 18:51 A Chilly Hike in Coal Creek 19:51 Interactive Tree Knocking 20:40 The Wall of Fear 22:17 A Strange Encounter in North Georgia Mountains 25:33 Missing Time and UFO Theories 30:12 Reflecting on Bigfoot Experiences 31:37 Exploring the Continuum of Phenomena 34:23 The NBO YouTube ChannelBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sasquatch-odyssey--4839697/support.

It's part 3 of our Woodstock Film Festival movie reviews as we discuss the 26th Awards Ceremony and some must see movies that won hardware. Plus, we review The Black Phone 2 & Shelby Oaks before diving into a non-spoiler AND spoiler review segment on After the Hunt. 26th WOODSTOCK FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS: An Audience Awards Winner getting its “second wind” in the Oscars race? - 3:52 The Plague w/ Joel Edgerton wins Best Narrative Feature competition - 7:05 Steal This Story, Please! Wins Documentary Audience Award + Our Review - 8:35 https://woodstockfilmfestival.org/2025-film-guide?filmId=689656bde56d04276a7b8bb5 Floating Carousel wins the Ultra Indie Award + Our Review - 11:24 https://bestdressedfilms.com/floating-carousel The Floaters wins Excellence in Directing Award + Review - 15:05 https://floatersmovie.com/ OTHER WOODSTOCK FILM FESTIVAL RECOMMENDATIONS / REVIEWS: The Ark: a doc on an animal refuge in the Ukraine - 19:30 https://woodstockfilmfestival.org/2025-features?filmId=6888d194890a9096ccbc5cce River of Grass: a doc on the alarming state of the Everglades in Florida - 23:31 https://www.riverofgrassfilm.com/ Park Avenue: an NYC drama featuring a stupendous Fiona Shaw - 26:04 On The End featuring Tim Blake Nelson in his best role since Buster Scruggs - 28:11 https://woodstockfilmfestival.org/2025-film-guide?filmId=68a721e699412b9ef7b6ba8b Eloise and the Dress: a hilarious short film in need of the feature film treatment - 31:14 https://woodstockfilmfestival.org/2025-film-guide?filmId=68bede7a397fa68e1fb335a0 Whale 52: an emotional and adorable animated short feat the voice of Bruce Villanch - 32:45 https://whale52themovie.com/ WHAT WE'RE WATCHING: The Black Phone 2 - 34:53 Shelby Oaks - 36:29 After The Hunt Non-Spoiler Section - 39:28 Spoiler Section for After The Hunt - 45:47 OUTRO: There's a big musical biopic hitting theaters soon called Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. There's a horror holiday, which we like to cover. Plus, we have Gotham Awards Nominations next week. Otherwise, we're planning more reviews, previews, and interviews that we hope you'll continue to enjoy. So please follow, like, subscribe, rate and review us via our socials or wherever you get your podcasts. As always, thank you for doing so. https://linktr.ee/mikemikeandoscar

In this episode, we're heading deep into the muggy heart of Florida — into the swamps, forests, and backroads most people only see from the safety of an airboat. Out here, under the cover of night and cypress moss, something moves through the shadows. Something big. Something that hundreds of people claim to have seen over the last two centuries — but science still refuses to acknowledge.We're talking about the Florida Skunk Ape — the Sunshine State's answer to Bigfoot, and one of the most unsettling mysteries still hiding in America's wilderness.You might think Florida's too developed for anything unknown to stay hidden. But across generations, the reports haven't stopped. Law enforcement officers, hunters, families, and veterans have all described seeing the same thing: a massive, hair-covered figure with glowing red eyes and a smell so strong it made their stomachs turn.These aren't campfire tales — they're official reports, eyewitness accounts, and in some cases, physical evidence collected by people who had everything to lose and nothing to gain by speaking up.We'll explore nearly 200 years of sightings and encounters, from frontier settlers in the early 1800s who described “man-sized monkeys” raiding fishing camps, to the terrifying 1929 incident at the Perky Bat Tower, where something powerful enough to shake a thirty-foot structure drove out every bat inside. We'll look at the case of two Palm Beach County deputies in the 1970s — both seasoned outdoorsmen — who came face to face with a seven-foot creature while investigating livestock attacks. They even recovered hair samples caught on a barbed wire fence. You'll also hear about the Vietnam veteran who, in 1977, watched an eight-foot creature emerge from the mangroves behind his home and was so shaken that he cleared thirty feet of brush from around his property just to sleep at night. And then there are the photographs. In 2000, an elderly woman in Sarasota County sent two chilling images to the sheriff's office, showing what appeared to be a reddish-brown, ape-like creature crouched behind her backyard. The so-called Myakka Photos are still being analyzed and debated over two decades later.We'll talk about Dave Shealy, the man who's dedicated his life to proving the Skunk Ape exists — running his Skunk Ape Research Headquarters in the heart of the Everglades. His 2000 video footage of a creature running through the swamp is still one of the most-watched cryptid videos online. But this episode goes deeper than the sightings.We're asking why so many people — trained law enforcement officers, hunters, and locals — believe they've seen something that modern science says shouldn't exist. We'll dive into the psychology, the skepticism, the cultural roots of the legend, and even the Seminole people's stories of Esti Capcaki, the “tall hairy man” that predates European settlement by centuries.By the end of this episode, you'll feel the humid air, hear the buzz of the swamp at night, and maybe understand why so many Floridians won't step foot into certain parts of the wilderness after dark. This isn't just another campfire tale. This is a journey through real encounters, credible witnesses, and the enduring mystery of something hiding out there in the heart of Florida's wild places.Whether you're a believer, a skeptic, or somewhere in between, this episode might just make you slow down a little the next time you're driving through the backroads of the Everglades after sunset — especially if you see a pair of glowing eyes staring back at you from the tree line.This is the episode the swamp doesn't want you to hear.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sasquatch-odyssey--4839697/support.