Hops held a special place in my heart and a month into our move we were ready to pick the ones that had been growing on our property. It would end up being the most memorable day of my life so far.

In this episode of Was Is Could Be: America’s favorite pastime - drinking beer.

“A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”

In the first part of this episode, we describe this predication made by Nikola Tesla about the cell phone.

But could Tesla also have predicted that these pocket phones would come to take place of watches, of letters, of maps, and of computers as a whole?

This is Was Is Could Be and this is the 2nd part of our series on phone communications in America - this time focusing on the cell phones.

In 1926, Nikola Tesla - the famed inventor - sat down with John B. Kennedy of Collier’s Magazine for an interview.

In it, he predicts that people will be able to carry phones in there pocket, and will be able to see and hear one another as if we were right next to one another.

But could he have predicted the way that mobility has changed the way we live? And if he did, would he have approved?

In this 2-part series, I talked to a telephone expert and a good friend to ask the question: Has mobility improved or hindered the way we communicate today?

Spending on outdoor recreation accounts for 2.2 percent of the American economy at just over $400 billion a year! This seems pretty incredible to me, especially since more expensive pursuits, like domestic oil and gas extraction, technically account for less of the economy.

So why is it that Americans are so willing to spend our precious paychecks to get outdoors? Why not just spent it at the gym? Or just walk outside for free?

I talked to an outdoor educator, a fellow hiker, an exercise physiologist, and a burnout expert to answer the question — what can being outside really do for us?