Welcome to Paradise

First off, a big thanks to Kerry and Zach for putting me up for 2 nights in Los Angeles.

It's my 3rd day in the Cook Islands.  Rarotonga is a very enjoyable, relaxed place with excellent weather.  A reef encircles the island, so waves are calm no matter which beach you visit.  The water is always clear, except maybe near a stream outlet.  Palm trees line every beach and snorkeling is as easy as walking right into the water.  I've gone swimming, snorkeling, hiking.  Today I hiked from the north end of the island to the south.  The hike ends with a fun waterfall.  It rained so hard when I got to the waterfall, I decided I might as well take a dip.  But aside from that, it's been sunny or partly cloudy, temps in the low 80s and humid.

People are very friendly.  They want to know where you're from, how you're doing, if you need any assisstance.  Everybody's laid back; "Island time" as some would call it.  There are some cars on the road, but most locals get around on scooters.  Right now there aren't any other Americans in my hostel.  Most of the other guests are from Australia, New Zealand, or Europe.  People tend to do their own thing during the day, but we've teamed up to go places at night.  Friday's supposed to be the big night out.  We'll see how that goes after I go SCUBA diving earlier that day.

The trip before The Trip

I went on a great ski trip with the family and Eric to Steamboat.  Steamboat is great little town, probably better than most other ski towns due to the fact that it was there long before skiing arrived.  It snowed a couple of times and got really cold.  Actually, the coldest day was the day we went snowmobiling.  The machines had hand and foot warmers built-in, but what they desperately needed were butt warmers!

In any event, we had a really sweet time.  I skied all 3 chutes, and got to feed the birds. :-D

The only part that really sucked was watching Eric, who's still just learning to ski, injure himself on Shadows.
Hopefully he gets better.

One big, short week lies ahead of me.  I need to pick up my passport from the Chinese Consulate in NYC, pick up the rest of my gear, see the dentist, even buy some good travel shorts.  The countdown to Friday has begun!