I just finished my end of the year break and it was by far the best break I have ever had. After almost a month off I feel very refreshed and excited to get back to work. First, my last race was the Xterra World Championships. All I can say about this race was that I was in WAY over my head. I don’t have much off road experience and it really showed in this race. But I was in Maui so not all was lost. I was able to spend a few days in Maui and got started on my Hawaiian surf vacation by getting in some surf with my coaches which ended up being a great warm up for what lay ahead on Oahu.
My Dad’s college roommate lives on Oahu and he is an avid surfer/wind surfer/paddle boarder and I went to go visit him. My time on Oahu turned into a blur of surfing fun waves and in great surf; it went by way too fast. I tried paddle surfing for the first time (not such a good idea in 8-10ft surf), checked out a few mountain biking spots, and surfed almost twice every day I was there. I had a GoPro with me for the trip so I will post a video shortly from my time on Oahu.
Since two islands apparently weren’t enough, I went over to Kauai with my parents. I was really excited to visit Kauai because I had never been there and everything I had heard about it sounded incredible. My experience there definitely lived up to expectations. I went on a different hike every day and saw as much as the island as I could in a week. I will definitely be back again to do some more exploring.
With my time in Hawaii (almost 4 weeks) coming to and end I still had one more part of my break left. Since I am spending some of the winter months in California, I needed to drive my car from Colorado back home. My brother and I decided that we could pull of a road trip and visit some national parks that we had never been to. Even with all the surfing in Hawaii, this was probably the best part of my break. We went to Arches, Bryce, Zion, Joshua Tree, and of course had to do a stop in Vegas. We had an amazing trip and I can’t even begin to describe all the places that we went to so I’ll put a few more pictures than normal. I realized after this trip that I could do one for a much longer period of time and I think I have a lot more exploring in my future!
