A Year of Change

Lori is getting better with each day that passes. Looking forward to being done with this. Ty’s off to work and I’ll head to the gym soon. Snow is coming, but maybe not soon enough to drive down the elk from the high country. Davy and I are heading back down to the ranch tomorrow morning to see what we can see. We’ll come back Sunday. Marty has to go to some Thanksgiving dinner in Greely with the in-laws as he can’t go on Thanksgiving.

Jag is working on a project for a company that wants to hire him. Think he goes to Chicago or New York in a week or so. We’ll no more next week.

Work is work. One day down at Davy’s ranch gives you a taste of the stark difference between how we live and how we should be living. Lori and I are making a move. Not sure when, where, or how, but between her surgery, and what she’s gone through, and the non-stop hamster wheel we’re both on at work, we realize there has to be a better way. Could be living on a golf course in Scottsdale, or on a ranch in Montana, maybe both! One thing we do know is continuing the day-to-day grind, wasting the years in the back half of our life, while we’re still relatively young and active, isn’t the answer. I think we’re all so conditioned to do what everyone does, that you never make the change. Diving into something new is hard for people. That can be retirement, moving, starting a new job, anything. People are creatures of habit which means you get into a routine and do the same thing over and over, like Groundhog Day. Not us, we’re doing something, we just don’t know what yet, but we will soon.

It was so peaceful down at the ranch. No phone, computer, no noise at all. Time moved slower. We were up at 5 and by 9am it felt like a whole day went by back home. It made me think, what the hell am I doing? I’ve been back for 2 days and can feel the difference, in everything. More to come.

Here are some pictures. First one is 5:30am, then closer to 6, and the inside of one of the cabins from the 1900’s that Davy added on to.

That’s it for today! Time to get moving. Have a great day, be well and God Bless.

Yesterday we were up early and glassing the mountainside at 6:10 when the sun came up. It was 12 degrees, which seems cold, but with no snow, is not cold enough to drive the elk down out of the high country. I think they were down during the night, eating and drinking from the river which flows right through the middle of the ranch, and then worked their way back up through the timber before sunrise.

We glassed for a good two hours, seeing dozens of deer, but no elk. We had two other guys on radios, and we all kept checking with each other. In the end though, no elk.

After driving around the ranch in Rangers (4-wheel drive Polaris Rangers used on the ranch) and considering the 3 days of scouting before of not seeing any elk, we figured they won’t come down until there’s some snow. Good news is Friday there’s a 30% chance of moisture, which would be snow down there, and 50% on Saturday. With the season ending Sunday, we decided to pack it in until Saturday morning. By 11 we all hit the road the home. Marty and I took Hwy 92 up the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River and then dropped down through Crawford until we hit 133 at Hotchkiss which we took into Carbondale. Then we cut over Cottonwood Pass to Gypsum. It’s about a 3 and a half, four-hour drive. I told him, we just drove all that way with using a major highway like I-70. We pulled in around 5 or so as we stopped for food in El Jebel. Davy and I will watch the weather and hopefully head back down Saturday morning. Marty has to go to a family pre-Thanksgiving thing in Greeley. He’s bummed.

Davy just called and we decided we will head back down Saturday morning. Abbey is flying out at 7:30 this morning for a funeral in Michigan and back tomorrow night. The ranch is amazing. Davy’s dad bought the first 1100 acres of the ranch in 1994 for $1.1 million. Two years later he added another 1800 acres. The Gunnison River runs smack dab in the middle of it. There’s five houses and a couple cabins. Of course, the houses are decked out using all kinds of old furniture from the stores and stuff. After I sent Lori pictures, she said, let’s move there!

Lori is doing as well as can be expected. She’s on 50 mg of steroids for the next three weeks, along with a heavy dose of Keflex, which is an antibiotic. Her neck is still red, but not as swollen. Good news is, her headache is almost nonexistent. We just need to get rid of the rash and we’ll be good to go.

Ty’s off to work and I’m going to go to the gym. 6:39am right now. I fell asleep around 8 and slept until 5:30. Have a great day, be well, take care and God Bless. Winter’s a coming!

Lori forgot to do the blog today. Sorry it’s so late. I took off yesterday for the ranch which is 30 miles south of Gunnison to see if we could spot some elk. As I said, it’s warm, too warm for the middle of November. Marty and I made it down by 3 or so and stopped by the DOW to get our tags, which are licenses. By 4 we were at the ranch and getting settled.

We had a nice dinner and by 9 or so, were crashing as we were getting up at 5.

Meanwhile Lori was at home fighting her allergic reaction. Ty was home and she insisted I go. Nate, our neighbor and doctor, came up to check on her. I think today she’s seeing a dermatologist.

More to come in the morning, time to go, be well and God Bless.

Yesterday we ran down to the hospital and had Lori’s bandage taken off. She, unbeknownst to us, is allergic to derma bond, which is the adhesive that is on the bandage. For the rest of the day, she took Benadryl and steroids to calm down the rash. It looks a little better today than last night. The good news is most of her headache is gone! She’s pretty much stopped taking pain meds.

Today Marty and I are headed down to Gunnison to meet Davy to look for some elk. It’s so warm with no snow and a full moon, that the elk are hard to find. They’ll feed all night, as it’s so bright, and then bed down in timber with no sun making them hard to find. Davy hasn’t seen any for a couple of days now. We’ll head back Thursday morning.

Ty is home today and tomorrow or I wouldn’t go. He can take Lori anywhere she needs to go or run any errands for her.

Warm outside right now. Nice for us but bad for hunting. Happy Veterans Day to all who served! Have a great day, take care and God Bless.

As it says, Lori is getting better with each day that passes. She’s still really sore, but we’re seeing good progress. She’s really itchy where the derma bond is on her incision. That’s normal as lots of people are allergic to bandages and especially the glue they use to seal up where they open you up. We’ll run down to the hospital today so Lori’s PA can change out her bandage.

Looks like Marty and I will head out to Gunnison tomorrow and hunt tomorrow night and Wednesday and hopefully get a cow elk or two. Ty is off the next few days so he’ll be here to help and keep an eye on Mom.

Jag and Ava took off around 11am for Denver so they could get home and get ready for the week. We loaded them up with some good food. Great to have them up here. Jag and I were throwing a football around and now the muscle on my side is sore! Guess I’m not 20 years old anymore, ha.

I have a bunch of work to knock out today on the computer. I need to write up a summary of what’ll be different with the Company in 2026. It’s been a rough few years since Covid for everyone, but we’re still moving forward.

Speaking of elk, Davy hiked up to 12,000 feet yesterday morning and saw some but couldn’t get near them. Normally we have snow by now which brings them down lower. The full moon isn’t helping either, as they’ll feed all night with it so bright and then hunker down in the dark timber before the sun comes up. That makes it hard to find them. We’ll see what the moon does the next few nights.

That’s it, have a good Monday. Time to start thinking about getting your turkey! God Bless.

We’re hanging in there. Lori’s headache is still pretty much non existent, which is amazing, but right on schedule, her neck still hurts. She does have a little rash near the incision site which is probably from the adhesive. Dr. Braxton came by yesterday to check on her and bring her flowers which was really nice. Abbey brought us dinner last night but Jag and Ava made this fantastic rack of lamb too. It was really really good, top shelf restaurant good. Jagger sure can cook.

Ty’s already off to work and the other two kids are still sleeping. I think it’s like 20 degrees in Denver this morning. We sleep with the windows open and it didn’t feel much colder than usual. We’re loving the now snow thing. It’ll be here soon enough.

I might take off tomorrow night or Tuesday morning for the ranch in Gunnison to go elk hunting, depending on how Lori is doing. Of course, she says go, and Ty will be home, but I’m taking things a day at a time.

7:30am now and football is on! Have a great day, be well and God Bless.

We made it to Denver around 10am. First stop was the distributor to pick up a couple cases of wine. Next we ran to Park Meadows to meet Toby so I could pick up a rifle I’m borrowing. Right at 11, we made it to the surgery center. Soon, we were checked in and getting Lori ready for surgery.

She said she wasn’t nervous but after 26 years, I could tell she was a little bit. This was a big big surgery. The surgeon, who Lori knows well, as she refers a lot of patients to him, came in and we went over the plan. He said it’d probably take a good 3 to 3 and a half hours, and if successful, Lori would be a case study! This means that surgeries like hers are difficult and not that common. We were both excited, but I told Lor, “not what ya want your surgeon to say before you’re going in, right?” Dr. Beckman looks really young, but he and Dr. Braxton were in the Air Force together and were both Chief of Staff in the military. Anyhow, Lori’s head was pounding so we were a go. I gave her a kiss on the top of her head, as they had scrubbed her neck and made her swirl swabs with iodine in her nose to prevent infection, and off she went.

I headed into Denver to hang out and pick up some cigars to kill some time. Then I drove out to our favorite specialty grocery store, Tony’s Market, to get some great food and kill some more time. After that, I headed back to the surgery center. I hung out in the truck for 45 minutes or so until I got a text saying they were closing, meaning sewing her shut, as then I knew she was coming out of surgery.

About 30 minutes later, Dr. Beckman called me and I said I’m out front, and he said, “ok, I’ll just come out”. He came and got me and we went back to recovery where Lori was awake but loopy. He told me, and these are his exact word, “dude, it was brutal but turned out really good”. He told us it would be rough, and she’d be sore as the CAT Scan showed bone on bone with no disc or space between C5 and C6. He said he was going to have to literally hammer out some bone to create a space for the new discs. Here’s an after picture showing the new discs in which are perfect and show a nice space and cushion between the vertebrae. Above the two new discs you can see her C2, C3 fusion from 2012. The two Oreo looking things where you’d see the cream are the discs.

Lori is actually taller now too! She just said this is way worse than she anticipated, ha. I knew it wasn’t going to be a cake walk. After talking to the doctor, I headed to a Walgreens 10 minutes away to try to get her four prescriptions. Luckily, I had picked up some wine as I had to give the head pharmacist a bottle, or I would have been there for hours. Even so, they called me from the surgery center wondering where I was. Thankfully I was just leaving to go back to get Lori. Dr. Beckman met me, and we made our way in through a backdoor as the front doors close at 5pm. It was now about 6pm we got Lori in the truck ready to go home. The ride was rough, as expected as the drugs were wearing off.

We made it home by 8:15 and I got her settled before unloading all the stuff in the truck. An hour later Jagger and Ava showed up. The rest of the night was spent with Lori being uncomfortable and neither of us sleeping that well. At 6am, I did notice she was finally asleep. By 7 she was up. She just had her morning medications. We’ll see how the rest of the day goes. We need to stay ahead of the pain.

Ty went to work at 6:30. I might go to the gym, haven’t decided yet. Hoping the day goes well for Lori. We’ll keep everyone posted, God Bless.

Rough game last night, but we won. The Broncos have 8 wins which is the most in the NFL. Wasn’t pretty, but we’ll take it.

We’re off at 7:30 this morning for Denver for Lori’s surgery. She checks in at 11 and at noon should be in the OR. I think the surgery will take 2 and a half hours, but they never really know until they get in there. I’m hoping I can pick her up around 4:30 or 5 to drive home. We’re hoping and praying this works, as you never know until it’s over. Praying it helps her as her headache is really painful. I’ll keep you posted.

Jag and Ava are coming up tonight, and Ty should be home before us. I have some work to do over the weekend and if Lori is doing ok, I’ll head to Gunnison with Davy Sunday night to go elk hunting.

That’s about it, wish us luck, and may God watch over and fix Lori! God Bless.

Surgery tomorrow. We’re still waiting on approval from the insurance company as yesterday, but Dr. Braxton told Lori yesterday that if approval doesn’t come in, he’d pay for it! He said, “we have to get you fixed”. We’re hoping for approval today as it could be $100K that he’d have to pay. So, looks like we’re a go for tomorrow, one way or another.

Big game tonight. Ty will be there in his finest Broncos gear. He’ll get there when the gates open which will be about 2:15 this afternoon. Yesterday after work, he cleaned his room really well. Normally he cleans it like a 21-year-old would, but this week, he cleaned it like we would, nice job!

Mild up here with no rain or snow. It’ll come soon enough. We’d be fine if it stayed like this all winter! 6am now and still dark outside. The Sun should be coming up soon.

Have a great Thursday, Go Broncos and God Bless.

After yesterday’s elections, now we for sure have to move! Every tax increase looks like it passed and here in Eagle, every leaning left candidate (they didn’t have to declare if they were a Republican or Democrat) seems to have won. Results are only about 40% in though so maybe that’ll change. Even the guy down the street who took down signs of other candidates, and was charged by the police, looks like he won.

Nationally, an antisemitic, Muslim socialist who is really a communist, is now the Mayor of New York. This will help the Republicans next year though as New York will be a mess and there will also be a huge exodus from the city. Too bad for New York but it’s been a shit hole for years. I haven’t gone these for years and now won’t be going at all. If I have business there, I’ll fly into Newark and meet in New Jersey. In New Jersey and Virgina, the Dems are acting like they won the lottery. This is funny as those two States have always been blue and the Dems should have won. What was surprising was the guy running for AG in Virgina, won after he wished his Republican opponent and his family, including his children, would die. People sure are messed up these days.

We’re hoping Lori’s surgery gets approved today. If not, we’ll get a peer to peer going right away. That’s where her doctor has to talk with the insurance company doctor and make the case as to why she needs surgery. This is common but a pain in the ass.

Ty went to the DMV in Glenwood yesterday to get his picture taken for his driver’s license. He also went for an oil change on his truck and washed it. The restaurant is closed today for a deep cleaning so he’s almost out the door. Jag and Ava are coming up this weekend.

I have to write up a summary today on the new chapter of the Company and what we’re planning on doing in 2026. Still warm outside. 6:30 now so guess I’ll get moving. Have a great day, take care and God Bless.