BY JON HODGIN | JULY 6, 2026 Not long ago, I was walking through a parking lot and spotted an absolute beast of a vehicle. It was a brand-new Jeep Wrangler, completely built out for serious, hardcore off-roading. It had massive 37-inch mud-terrain tires, a four-inch suspension lift with top-of-the-line reservoir shocks, heavy-duty steel bumpers, a high-powered winch mounted on the front, and a snorkel intake winding up the side of the windshield. It even had a row of intensel

BY JON HODGIN | JUNE 29, 2026 This week, our nation reaches a milestone that few experiments in human history ever achieve: 250 years of independence. As the fireworks light up the sky and we gather around grills with our families, it is easy to look back at the founding of America through a romanticized, textbook lens. We see statues of pristine men in powdered wigs and think of liberty as an inevitable conclusion. But history tells a much grittier story. In the summer of 17

BY JON HODGIN | JUNE 22, 2026 I’ve spent a lot of time on rivers over the years. Whether navigating the intense whitewater in Colorado or taking an epic, freezing-cold trek down the Buffalo River here in Arkansas, I’ve learned a universal truth about moving water: The moment you stop paddling, you lose control. On a river, there is no such thing as holding your ground. If you pull your paddle out of the water to just float and relax, the current takes over. At best, it allows