Realizing that sugar is all you need

So after three days in Jefferson i woke to fog and drizzle. So i got up broke camp. Drove north back to Denver.
i went to my mothers house and hung out with her. Played some cribbage as well as watched movies on her computer. Netflix for 10 bucks a month is a great deal. She has now made me hooked on the tv show Lost. Started it from show # 1 bad move. Now i cant get enough.
What i really needed was a new lease on life. Had a bad pit in my stomach i could not shake. It killed my apatite as well as kept me down.
My wife was at this point was not being helpful in allowing  me to speak with my son or skype with him as she does not like the face to face. So i was only speaking with my son two maybe three times a week. My wife was under the twisted reality that she was making sure he was calling everyday. I guess i forgot her days last 72 hrs and she only works 30% of the day.
I woke up one morning and realized that i cant have her push me down any more i was not going to be a t her level. I could not feel helpless anymore or that i had been super screwed. i will rise above and only be positive. I learned this from some Rasta friends.
I Finlay have gone to my back surgeon and found out that i have a slipped disc as well as narrowing of the nerve channels. Plus inflammation on a vertebrae with a side of cyst in the nerve channel. So i have been scheduled for surgery on my lumbar region. They hope to only have one fusion maybe two. They say it will take six mos to heal, and a year to go back to some normal things.
So i have made the back of my truck a great place to sleep. I will however try to sell my truck and then purchase a conversion van for more room.

My recovery will be in a hotel room as i have saved enough money for two weeks. then back to my truck.

I was just going to camp for one night and decided to stay for 4 nights. Great place to explore from. The first day i drove into the town of San Luis. Cute town as i drove through. I stopped at a coffee shop that was calling my name for some reason. As i ordered a coffee i spoke with the owner, very nice lady. I asked about her coffee machine as i could see it was having a steam leak. She informed me that one had a better chance of winning the lottery than getting a tech to work on her machine. She also explained that the other coffee shops call each other for help when someone has a breakdown and what to do to get it fixed. Can you say business opportunity for me. hmmmm.
So I drove out to see some land i had seen online. 65 acres for 70 thousand dollars on a hill. The land is about 6 miles outside of San Luis. I had studied the satellite photos and found the land within 20 feet. It is right up off the floor of the valley and some great views.
I drove back north through FT. Garland and on to Alamosa. I spent the afternoon walking downtown going through the shops and speaking with shop owners and other locals. I also spoke with the only coffee shop but they were just line employees and really could not tell me who fixes the machines.
I drove back to my campsite and had fun watching a movie after skyping with my son. It was rather different to be talking online with friends from my tent.
The next day i drove down to Taos New Mexico. I drove south early and had a great morning to drive. I saw a few rattle snakes and ended up having a race with with a 5 point deer who then had to cut across the road in front of me instead of just waiting.
When I arrived in Taos I decided to get some breakfast so i found the place the locals lined up to get in. I had my favorite biscuits and gravy. Place was a gold mine busy as all get out. It was Sunday so all were out for food. I then spent the day walking through the town and through the shops. Met some great people and some that one wonders how they sell anything when they wont even say hi to the people that come in.
I also found out that it was the first annual Gay pride festival on the downtown green. Lots of vendors and artists. It was cool.
I ended the day in town with a stop at the farmers market and tried some really good local fares. Goat cheese and vegetables as well as fresh baked goods.

I left town by going west towards the land of Earthships. I had heard about the earthships from my first wife and she had some books about how to build one. They are burm homes built into the earth with a southern exposure. My kind of living off the grid and totally green. The base of the house is dirt filled used tires then adobe over them with cans and bottles in the spaces to fill in. The front is angled glass with a greenhouse in front. Look it up sometime its quite a good way to live. The land i was looking at I had thought of building a container house.
I drove north to Alamosa and back to FT. Garland to my camp site. As i was going to my tent after a shower i met a great couple and spent the evening talking. Gordon and Sherry are from New Mexico and have the same views on life as i do. They have a great rv and have some land that they plan on building on not to far from the camp site.
They gave me a tour of their land and we some some walking around. My knee was still a bit sore but it felt good to walk in nature. Spent my last night talking with my new friends and had great conversation.


I left the following morning and drove north on 285 through Salida and some small towns along the way. I finally ended up in Jefferson were my sister had taken my son and me to camp a couple of times before. I got the best camp site with a western view and amazing sunsets.

Got to love this picture modern camping. Laptop nice chair, queen size blowup mattress with 600 count sheets and wifi.

Starting to see the lemons as a way of life

So I'm back. I found that after my son was here a bit. My wife became more aggressive with me as well as not wanting to help me out with any money. Also at this point my living situation became very uncomfortable. I was then realizing that my wife had the upper hand, so i was unable to fight her anymore. I had to do what was best for my son at the time and send him back with her.
I had one week left with him when i needed to go in for knee surgery so i could walk without a brace. I was at this point house sitting and dog sitting for some friends, when my wife flew here to collect our son. She spent 5 days here ands was very civil in front of my son.
I had my knee done and she was nice to take me to the hospital as well as bring me home. I saw very little of them the last two days and then they left. She was nice enough to purchase some shoes for me and gave me $300 dollars to live on. (Still a part of the 1200 she owed me for my ticket.)
Two days after they left i was now homeless and went to my mothers for a few days. She lives in a retirement place and is limited to stay only for short stints. So sleeping in my truck has been interesting.

Finally i was trying to figure out what i needed to do for housing. I had heard of cheap property in the San Luise valley in southern Colorado. I packed up my SUV with food and camping gear that i had purchased right after i came to Colorado. Drove south along the Rockies down I25 to route 160. As i drove i found that my 93 Isuzu Trooper with 268k on it was quite nice and it rode well. It did lack a bit of power.

So as i passed Spanish peaks later in the afternoon the scene was stunning. Pictures don't pay them justice.
I drove over the pass to Ft. Garland reaching it around 6 pm. I stopped in at an Italian restaurant  for some food . I was only eating maybe one meal a day at this point. The food was great calzone with green chilies. I  save half and left it on the dash of the truck. Trick i learned when i was a kid living in Fla. Had it for lunch the next day nice and warm.

However the waiter had told me about an RV park down the road for camping. I had thought of rough camping but it was late and i did not know the area. What i found was the wonderful owners of the Ute Creek RV park. Ten bucks a night that included toilet shower and wi fi. I had a site right by a stream with nice size trout in it.

Starting with lemons

I am starting this blog as almost a new start for my life. I am going through a nasty divorce or at least it is that way from were i stand. I was living a good life or so i thought, in St. Kitts West Indies. My wife is an executive for a large hotel chain, and me a stay at home dad. I became a stay at home dad while living in Connecticut and was suffering from degenerative disc disease and the lovely weather in the north east. I was almost unable to function and was on a tn of pain meds, After three years of begging to leave the area my wife got a job in the West Indies.
Now I have been my sons caregiver since he was born since my wife is a career girl and always working and doing some kind of class. She got her masters while working full time and having our son in two years with straight A's. So i was always there to pick up the slack as she was very busy. Things we do to make our lives better,  and to support your spouse.
While moving to the West Indies i found that my need for pain pills and the need for Norotin was obsolete. It took me 4 months to ween myself off of the drugs. As time went on i did find that the progression of my back disease was continuing. However i did what i needed to do as a father for my son, lunch,taking him back and fourth to school as well as sit and do homework. I would also make him dinner and get him to bed most of the time.
Now I am not saying she was or is a bad mother, she just was not there much for our family.
I guess i liked the way lemons smell and did not realize i was sitting on a truckload. Love really is blind.
So while living in the West Indies i had fun. I went diving hundreds of times. Made some wonderful friends
Like Sam and Mike and Michelle, as well as lots of other great people i hung out with. But even good friends can't fix that damn truckload of lemons at home.
 My wife was working tons of hours as usual, but i noticed that she also was not paying much attention to me or for the fact my son. And as time went on and we fought for really stupid reasons. But for the most part the biggest problem was her job. She was hiding there to stay away from me as a refuge. I also noticed that the intimacy was gone. No more hugs or hand holding or even a hey  i love you. She was even not saying i love you back when i would call her on the phone. Some excuse that she hated when family would call anybody at work. So i stopped unless it was really important.
All this ended with me becoming very depressed and the lack of love from her also killed my self confidence as a man. It pushed me to the point of self destruct or domestic problems.
After almost three years and several make up times i finally could not take the yo yo of the way i was being treated and being blamed for everything. I booked a ticket to go back to Colorado were my mother and one of my sisters live and i grew up for a portion of my life.
I had left my son in the West Indies as he had one month left of school and we had already made plans for him to go to Colorado to see my mother and sister. He had not seen my mother for almost 4 years, since he is 8 that's way to long.
So a month after i left i flew to Miami to pick up my son. While there i was able to speak with my wife since she had pretty much ignored me after i was gone. We spoke the next morning and i was informed that she had grown apart from us as well was not attracted to me because i was not a confident man anymore. Hmmm go figure.
She was almost was not going to let me take my son with me as she thought i would get my Canadian passport and vanish with him. ( I was born in Canada but carry a US passport.)
As we were leaving her at the airport she gave me $400 for my son to help with expenses for the 4 weeks he was to be in Colorado. It was a bit of an argument because i had to ask for it and she had forgotten that she was reimbursed for mu $1200 ticket that i paid for from her employer. She had also promised me that she would deposit the funds so i would have them if i needed it.
The second day my son was in Colorado he mentioned to some people we were camping with that he wished to stay in Colorado with me and not return to the West Indies. He also said this to me several times as the week went on. He also mentioned this to my wife by telephone. She subsequently went ballistic and lost her mind on the phone with me.Explaining to me he was only eight and could not know his own mind. I asked if he could stay a bit longer as my wife had made it quite clear i was not welcome to come back to the island. Normally this would not deter me but she has control over my residence visa as her employer pays the large price for it.