I’m back in my homeland of New Mexico at the moment and enjoying it like a proper resort holiday. I’ve been on plenty of hikes, chilling in a hot tub, and yesterday had a chance to do a little rock climbing. I managed to scramble up each of the routes we roped, and had some fun bouldering around, but the highlight of the day was seeing my friend Ryan’s silly grin as he marked the routes for the rest of us to follow. Certainly a reminder of just how joyful the great outdoors can be.

It’s cruel to even call it ‘ice’. While we were in Madrid we encountered what appeared to be a little urban ice rink set up for the holidays. Closer examination revealed that it was, in fact, plastic – like a plastic cutting-board. Kids were slipping and sliding all over the place, unable to stand up well or do anything that even vaguely resembled skating. It was sad watching these poor kids suffer the the joyless indignity of scrambling around wearing ice skates on a giant cutting board. Whoever’s idea it was to ruin these kid’s experience of winter sports should be punished.

I’ve been cruising around Northern California for the last couple of weeks and had a chance to get on three different boats during the course of a couple of weeks. This comes from my second boat ride on a speed boat on the American River running through Sacramento. My own hydrofoil exploits were significantly less impressive than what you see here (I simply got out of the water for a couple of seconds). But I did have a chance to watch this master, Mike, in action. He used to perform at a water park, so no surprise that he can effortlessly flip around like this.