Last week, during my spring break, we flew up to Colorado and spent the week in the rocky mountains, at or near Beaver Creek resort, near Vail. The weather was perfect for skiing, and there was 18″ of fresh powder from a snowstorm the day before we arrived. It also snowed 5″ more while we were there. The fam went skiing and ‘boarding twice. I’d never gone skiing or boarding and thought I’d try it, so I took a “group” snowboarding class with only one other student, so it was pretty much a private lesson. It was pretty fun, despite the fact that I fell down a lot… I’m still sore a week later.

Another highlight of the trip was our visit to the original Chipotle, in Denver, near DU. It was small but the food was good. I wanted to buy a t-shirt but they didn’t have my size… so they just gave me one! On the back it says, “I made the pilgrimage to Evans” [st.].

So admittedly, I’m a little late on this post, but what else is new, eh? A couple weeks ago was the fabled “cool kids cruise” of 2008. We got in a boat, and rowed on down south of the border to the Mexican Riviera. The full 13 of us “kids” went on a zipline and repelling tour in Puerto Vallarta, which was awesome! We took an inflatable speed boat to get there and on the way we saw a group of humpback whales, one of which was nice enough to give us a show by breaching, in slow motion, I’m pretty sure. In Mazatlan, D+E+D+J skipped the formal tours and took our own walking tour around the city. As far as Mexican cities go, it was not bad. The next day, Erin and I went scuba diving in Cabo San Lucas, at “Land’s End”. We saw some cool animals that we’d never seen before, including a school of puffer fish, a few moray eels, and a couple sea lions playing together. I still haven’t sat down to organize the pictures, but I hope I will soon.

Well, we're back from our Caribbean holiday, and I must say it was a great vacation! We got plenty of sleep, but also had plenty to do (and of course more than enough to eat).

Our first stop was St. Maarten (or St. Martin). We rented ATV's and went on a mini tour around the tiny island. We stopped at a scenic overlook and at the "most popular beach on the island," where we promptly took our shoes off and I promptly lost my glasses to the crazy surf. Luckily, the trip was not ruined, as we found an optometrist in the teeny city, from whom I bought some contacts.

The highlight of our trip was definitely the SCUBA diving at Buck Island off of St. Thomas. The water was super clear, maybe 100' visibility, and a balmy 79 degrees. The funny thing is, the guides were saying the water was the coldest of the year. We were practically sweating in our 3 mil wetsuits. We were told that we had a 50% chance of seeing a sea turtle, and a 50% chance of seeing a shark, of which, unfortunately, we saw neither. But we did see a sunken ship in 40' of water, and a reef with plenty of fish, in 60' of water. Erin saw a 4' barracuda.

Our last stop on the cruise was an island in the Bahamas actually owned by Princess, called Princess Cays. It was basically like the Disneyland of the Bahamas. It was very pretty, and palm tree-lined. We were able to find some lounge chairs to laze around in (Erin in the sun and me in the shade, of course), and got a nice view of our ship.

One of the most amazing things of the whole trip was how incredibly blue and transparent the water was. Everywhere we went, you could see straight through the water to the bottom, as you can see in lots of the pictures.

After we disembarked back in Ft. Lauderdale, our last huzzah was a trip to the Everglades for an air boat ride. The Everglades is actually not technically a swamp but actually the widest and slowest moving river in North America. It flows from Lake Okeechobee in the middle of the state at an elevation of 18' above sea level, down and out to the ocean. So it doesn't move too fast. We actually saw 3 crocodiles in their native habitat, including one eating a fish, which is apparently extremely rare.

For more pictures, see the picasa web album. The End.