My six month anniversary

I think this is a Staghorn Cactus flower but I'm not sure.

Today marks my six month anniversary of going full-time. It's hard to believe that I've been on the road that long because the time has flown by.

So to mark this occasion I thought I would talk about what I've learned in the last six months and call it, THE GOOD, THE BAD, and THE UGLY.

THE GOOD:

Without a doubt the best thing has been the Freedom to come and go whenever, and wherever I want. Within my financial constraints of course. Being able to make decisions during the day based solely on how I feel takes a lot of stress out of my life, and even though it sounds very selfish, which I guess it is , I believe that is the basis for being free.

And speaking of freedom, getting rid of a lot of my personal possessions has been one of the best things I ever did. Now I'm sure that you have heard of that before and so had I, but I just didn't realize how true it was. Personal possessions, things, stuff, junk, collections, all end up owning you after a while, you think you own it but sooner or later it will own you.

Now I still buy things, in fact this summer I'm going to buy motorcycle to hang on the back of the Arctic Fox. But everything I buy now has to pass a test which is;     will this thing make my life Better, Easier, Safer, or more Fun, than before, or is it something I want just for the sake of owning it ?

I've still got a whole lot of things I need to get rid of but I'm not dreading it in fact I'm looking forward to it.

Another good thing is the Boondocking, I knew I was going to like the money it saved but I didn't realize how much I was going to enjoy living out in the boondocks.

I'm still learning the ins and outs of Boondocking and as time goes on I hope I can do more, but it takes time and experience to learn the locations that are suitable for me.

 Blogging has been a good thing, I didn't think I was going to enjoy it, I think I looked at it as just something to do when I was bored. But I found that I actually enjoy it and look forward to finding something to write about every day. It's also a great justification for buying more cool camera equipment.

Something else that never even crossed my mind that I would enjoy is paying my bills and doing my banking online. I never did any of that until I went full-time because frankly I didn't trust it.

Now I still only barely trust it, but being on the road I have no choice, and being able to take care of all my banking and bill paying with a few mouse clicks really simplifies my life.

Not watching the news every night has been a wonderful thing and I hope I never start back doing that again.

Before I went full-time I would watch hours and hours of news every day and all it did was make me feel bad. Misery over here, terror over there, death and destruction everywhere, and there was nothing I could do about it except feel bad listening to it all.
Nowadays I either don't watch television because I don't want to, or I don't watch it because there's no channels available. Either way I'm better off and more sane than I was.

Right up there near the top of the good things about going full-time is I don't have to deal with the cold and snow anymore.

Living in the mountains of Colorado there's only three months when you can be "kind of sure" that it won't snow, and that's June, July, and August, and that makes for a pretty long winter. Being able to spend this last winter in Arizona is probably one of the reasons the time seems to fly by.

I'm sure there's more good things but that's all I can think of right now. Tomorrow I will write about THE BAD. And I hope there's a lot less to write about than today.

   theboondork

---