Boulder Colorado.

After a spotting of sun in the desert - Nev and I hopped onto a flight and headed up to Colorado - destination - Boulder. The photo above is of the flat irons in Boulder - it's one of the most distinctive features which forms the back drop of the town. Buolder is perched at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, so you can imagine the flat irons frame the town in a pretty spectacular fashion. We got into Boulder -had some nice soup - a browse round the mall then headed to the University of Colorado to check up on Nevs 'stem cells'!!

Nev is doing a PhD in stem cell research - she explained it all to me in the basic of basic layman's terms - my deminished of knowledge from genetics and biology classes gone by came back to me in lets say 'drabs' - but I got the jist of her research aims. Simply put, her work may help us all if we nail ourselves - so watch this space - it's pretty frikkin cooooooool!

I have never had Christmas away from home - and I couldn't have wished for a better time. Nev was certainly the hostess with the mostess! We decided before I got there that we would take the best bits of Christmas and throw them together - so we did = including Colemans finest packeted bread sauce mix - Christmas just wouldn't be the same without bread sauce now would it?!

Boulder was a sensory overload for me - a winter abyss for athletes, tourists and locals. The place was a mass of activity - everyone seemed fit and healthy and that was very much the emphasis in the town. There were health food, sports, outdoor and holistic therapy stores everywhere - it seemed like a real eco conscious town too - quite unlike the most of the US - stinky big trucks were out and wee 4x4 scoobee - doos were in - most of which had bike or ski racks on the top.

Nev and I packed the car on Christmas day and headed into the hills - you may know this - but Denver is the mile high city - Boulder it's sister town is also at altitude - hence the reason why there are a lot of athletes living in Boulder - anything to help their bodies form more of that precious o2 carrying haemoglobin - its an amazing place to be for altitude training.

On Christmas day - the wind was so bad - we decided not to ski, but went up to the mountains any way and stumbled up on a cool we shop that served an american style cider! Wicked - we headed home - made Christmas dinner and learned how to knit - RANDOM! Ski day was boxing day - off we went - rented some XC skis and blasted a couple miles down a trail to an massive frozen lake - I couldn't stop smiling - it was just awe inspiring - all around us - there were trails - people were XC/DH skiing and snow shoeing - there were dogs every where and people with the happiest faces - I could so see myself living somewhere like that at some point - not to dissimilar to the trails at home in the summer really.

The last day in Boulder we went to the famous Luciles for brekkie - and it exceeded all of my expectations - YUMMY is it's middle name for SURE! Damion made it up for the feast too which was so cool - I didn't think he would take kindly to the early morning, but he surprised us!!

So - the last few days in Arizona were a blurrrrrrrrr - but I left exhausted which is the sign of a great trip - I have some of the most amazing friends a girl could be blessed with.

I love ya. X