Why I started Uncovering American

There’s a version of America you get handed every day without asking for it. The doomscroll version. The outrage version. The algorithm-approved version where everyone’s screaming, no one’s listening, and everything feels like it’s on fire.

I don’t buy it.

Not because I’m naïve, and not because I think this place is perfect .I don’t. I’m a dad, a veteran, and someone who’s seen enough real life to know the world is complicated, messy, and full of people doing the best they can with what they’ve got.

But I also know this: there’s a real America that you only find when you actually go.

Raccoons enjoy fried chicken at Alpine Inn in Omaha Nebraska

It’s the one I want my kids to inherit. Not the noise. Not the panic. Not the finger-pointing. The real thing. The good thing. The human thing.

So I picked up a camera and started driving. Into small towns most people blow past at 75 miles an hour. Into hangars full of airplanes older than my parents. Into diners where the waitress knows every customer by the way their boots hit the floor. Into places with soul — the kind that doesn’t need marketing to prove it exists.

I didn’t start Uncovering American because I wanted a travel show. I started it because I wanted to remember, and I wanted to show my kids, that there is still something honest and worth fighting for in this country. People who build. People who repair. People who care. People who show up.

And if you’re willing to show up with me, you’ll see it too.

This is why I started the series. To find the America that isn’t shouting — but is still very much alive.