I'll tell you what Chuck, I used to go up the canyons when I got my first drivers license, but sitting there on the seat next to me wasn't some 8" Newtonian... It was a keg of beer and a little dish named Pat! ;) Quoting Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com>:

I'm going to assume that you didn't start doing this decades years ago, setting-up your telescope as a ten, eleven-year-old kid, driving up the canyon when you first got your driver's license with your 8-inch Newtonian in your mothers station-wagon, setting-up on side roads, only to have "kegger" parties unload on the road, blocking your only way back onto the highway? Or drunken, stoned groups stumble onto your set-up in the dark? Or neighborhood bullies try to intimidate you early in the morning in the back alley, away from the streetlight?

Do you really want to start comparing life's experiences with others? As tough a life as I'm sure you think you've had up until now, with a job and a family to support, there will always be someone, somewhere, who has had, or, has it just a little bit worse... Someone perhaps who's lived a bit longer than you, who may have a few extra years of "life sucks" under their belt. Becareful who you choose to compare life's little scars with... ;)