I seem to have gotten in the bad habit of traveling and then convincing myself that I have now become a native of that destination. Just as I fell in love with Boston, and the food and culture of that city, I fell in love, twice as hard, with Colorado. When I say I found my true calling out there, I'm not kidding.

Our main purpose for heading out west was to experience the mountains out in that part of the country. You can go skiing or snowboarding on the east coast, but let me tell you, nothing compares to the mountains you'll see out there. While we were in Denver for five days, we only spent one of those days out in Breckenridge at Copper Mountain. If it were up to me, we would have spent all five days at the mountain, but with a big group of friends, you sometimes have to make sacrifices. But even just being out there for a day, I had one of the best days of my life. I prefer snowboarding to skiing and I was undoubtedly outkicking my coverage when I chose to take on a few black diamond runs. I'd say I almost died a handful of times, definitely thought I had broken a rib and was convinced my wrist was fractured, but I have never experienced anything like that in my life. If my girlfriend hadn't dragged me back to our airbnb, I would still be on that mountain.

Even once I headed back to South Carolina, I couldn't stop thinking about snowboarding. I was thinking about it all the time - dreaming about it even. I was craving the cold, the adrenaline rush and even the high altitude. It's something you can't replicate when you're on the east coast and all I wanted to do was go back. We did a bunch of other great stuff while we were out there - we went out in Denver, saw an Avalanche game and even enjoyed our hot tub at our airbnb. But nothing ever has or ever will compare to the way I feel when I'm snowboarding - euphoric.