#HappyFourthOfJuly from #TheTravelingMac folks! I hope your #celebration of this amazing nation’s birth is as fun as it should be… No matter what troubles this #country faces and what troubles it will face in the future, we are lucky to live in a #UnitedNation that is always searching for ways to improve itself… Regardless if you are #Republican, #Democrat, #Liberal or a combination of all and no matter how we disagree on most issues, we live in one of the greatest countries in the #world, which allows us to have such disagreements… As much as we would love to squash our rival parties sometimes, I am glad to realize it takes all of these points of views to make this country as great as it is… For if this country was controlled solely by one #PoliticalParty then it would not be the #FreeCountry we enjoy today because that party would eventually become too #powerful, with no opposition what so ever…

What we do need to realize is, all this #political infighting needs to be put aside for this one great day, while we celebrate this country’s winning fight for #independence almost 250 years ago… If you want to realize it or not, we are all apart of #America… we all contribute in some way to keep the #UnitedStates free and try to keep it a positive influence for the rest of the world… We tend to forget this unity we all enjoy, worried about our own individual #struggles and the struggles of our #families… But at the end of the day, we are one and we should always remind ourselves of such, for the enemy is everyone who wants to destroy this great #freedom we all enjoy together… We are a nation full of families and friends, working together to improve the #freedoms we enjoy…

I just want to suggest that we try to think outside of our own bubble today… Just because we don’t know another family doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about them… We should care about every family in this country regardless of what they believe and try not to get engulfed in the #individualism that our #culture is piling on us more and more everyday…

Considering I have decided to take it easy this #4thOfJuly, I figured I would share with you all of my pictures from the #firework show I enjoyed at #NiagaraFalls,NY… I can’t see any other #FireworkShow being as magnificent as what I witnessed here about two weeks ago… It was breath taking and that night still follows me as I continue my #journey across #TheUnitedStatesOfAmerica…

Thank you America and everyone who has contributed in the past and up to today because without you, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this year long #CrossCountry trip… Even as I sit in my room at #TheQualityInn, waiting for #TheMillenniumFalcon to be fixed, I am feeling #patriotic and eager to see what this great country has in store for me… I truly do love #America and eagerly anticipate the possibilities that are ahead of us in the near future…

Now for some reason, I have some people who have misinterpreted what I am trying to accomplish on this #trip… They think my intentions are ridiculous and this so called “roughing it” is a total mirage… They think that I am just as reliant on the #Corporations and #technology as when I started this trip… Well, I want to address this…

Let me start off by saying to these people, I really don’t give a shit what you think… As much as you would like to believe, I am not on this journey for attention… I actually didn’t even want to write in this #blog but saw the blog as an opportunity to #write everyday, which is one of the reasons I am on this trip, so I can get back to #writing freely again…

This blog has given me purpose and has forced me to sit down and write… I would like to say it is working because not only do I look forward to writing every morning, I am also working on other projects as well… With that said, this trip is already a success because I am happier… So, even though I am only a month and a half into #traveling, I feel the progress I have made is enormous… Especially considering I was a miserable dick who couldn’t write a word before I started this #trip…

Folks, I know I’m not truly roughing it… I’m in a #vehicle that provides me with most of the basic #ModernConveniences… I never planned on this trip to be a journey of bare bones #survival… I made this journey because I felt #suffocated living everyday life as I was and saw this as an opportunity to try and break free from such displeasure… I made this #trip because I was miserable with my situation in #LosAngeles,CA… You can say I became more self aware and realized all this crap I was buying and all of these conveniences I was working my ass off to keep, were just not worth it to me anymore… I realized that I wanted to have more of an impact on this world, knowing all my selfish needs were frivolous and were not giving me joy anymore… I have become more concerned about the suffering, killing and poverty in this world and I want to help do something about it…

But I also realize I don’t know how to go about it and which issues I really want to focus on… I have a lot of grievances when it comes to the way this world is run and how #greed has propelled us into an ongoing, everyday nightmare… I also realize it is impossible to address every one of these grievances alone… I need to pick the ones I want to address but I don’t even know which ones they are just yet… Even if I did know, I still don’t know how to go about it…

So, the only way to move to the next step is to get my own head straight… How can I help others when I’m a complete mess myself? So, I decided to #downsize my life… Instead of working my ass off for a mammoth mortgage or an over priced rent, I decided to get rid of it all and down size my whole situation… Instead of being at the mercy of all these #BigCompanies, who seem to absorb all of my free time randomly, I decided to get rid of most of them and only deal with a few…

I know I’m not roughing it really… I know if I really wanted to #RoughIt I could do this by foot and live in a #tent… But that’s not what this journey is about to me… I don’t think roughing it, just to rough it, is a solution to my problems… I really wanted a journey where I can get away from it all, in some sense, and figure out things in #solitude, without all the modern distractions…

I know I still have my #iPhone and I upload my blog at #McDonald’s every 5 to 6 days but those 5 to 6 days when I am away from any internet connection or phone calls is enough for me… I don’t want to erase myself from #civilization all together, I just want to escape from it so it can’t influence my thoughts or distract me as I try to figure out what the next step in my life is…

You will be surprised how clear you think about such things when you have been out in #nature alone for 6 days… There’s no phone calls, checking the internet, updating your apps, checking text messages or any of these everyday distractions which I feel keep me from focusing on what I should be doing… You just have yourself, your things and a huge, vast nature nurturing you so you can think and focus on whatever you need to…

I realize I still need to function in this world and #society to be able to make an impact on this world… I have to play the game or be in it to make any real impact… But that still doesn’t mean what I am doing isn’t extremely difficult… If I was out in the #woods on my own, I wouldn’t have any responsibility except for myself… Driving cross country makes me responsible for a vehicle, a home and everything in it… But the great thing is, it isn’t much to have to take care of… I don’t need a 40 hour week job to keep alive now because I have downsized so much… So, by downsizing like I have, I can find time for writing, exploring and figuring out what I want to do next in my life…

Now that #tragedy has struck and The Millennium Falcon is going to cost me quite a bit of money, I can go get a job for a month and catch up on these bills… Instead of working crazy hours to fill a void these rents and luxuries seem to create, I can just pay off what I have accumulated in no time at all because I have hardly any bills to keep up with… My only responsibility in life now is too keep the Falcon running, buy gas, buy food and find somewhere to park every night… Having such a small amount of responsibility allows me to focus on the things I need to in life and hopefully discover some purpose in the end…

Honestly, I don’t know if I ever will go back to the expensive, chaotic life I used to live… Our culture just wants us to buy and buy more to fill that empty feeling we have… The irony is, all the things we buy to fill that void are the things that are essentially creating that void because you have to work your ass off to pay for them… It’s a vicious cycle that I feel is getting worse by the day… A cycle that I’m not knocking… I just realize its not for me…

If these certain people can’t understand that then I don’t know what to tell them… All I can say is I was miserable with my  life before and now I am quite happy… So I must be doing something right… I now write everyday without much thought… I am so used to it, it just flows out of me naturally where before this trip, I couldn’t even write a sentence without constant battling against my negativity and this lack of significance I was feeling… If I chose to continue down that path, I don’t think I would have lasted much longer…

So, regardless of what people think, this is my journey with #NoExpectations… I know I am not really roughing it like some choose to but I am definitely roughing it compared to the average person in this country… this trip is one of the boldest and scariest things I have ever chosen to do and it took every ounce of me to get it started… So, to the ones who question what I am doing, I hope you continue following me on this journey and maybe… just maybe… I will inspire you in some sort of a way in the future…

Happy Fourth of July folks and goodnight….