The days last runs on the halfpipe.

Copper Mountain, Colorado.

Freshly groomed snow awaits skiers and snowboarders for the first run of the day atop Copper Mountain Ski Resort in Colorado.

Off in the distance is the Gore Range.

In our household, the day after Thanksgiving is always White Friday.

Copper Mountain Resort, Colorado.

[iPhone photo]

Indoors at The Venetian in Las Vegas. That’s a painted sky.

An indoor Ferris Wheel surrounded by flowers – evening in The Conservatory at Bellagio, Las Vegas.

It’s late afternoon and the snowcats are getting ready to groom the hills for night skiing at Keystone Resort, Colorado. That’s Mt. Guyot (left) and Bald Mountain (right) off in the distance.

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Elephant Fountain at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Las Vegas Nevada.

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A woman in colorful clothes sweeps debris from the beach at Ras Nungwi Resort in Zanzibar. Today it is time to head home. Farewell Africa.

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A brightly-colored sandal has washed up on the beach in front of Ras Nungwi Resort in Zanzibar. It’s colorful decoration for the nearby home of a beach crab.

See the complete Zanzibar photo set at Flickr here.

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Twilight on the beach at Ras Nungwi Resort in Zanzibar.

See the complete Zanzibar photo set at Flickr here.

[Click photo above to enlarge]

I headed over to Copper Mountain early this morning for some New-Year’s-Eve-Day skiing. It was a beautiful. The photo above is a panorama of five photos that were stiched together in Photoshop. They were shot handheld with my small Canon SD800 IS camera. The photo was taken near the top of the Super Bee Lift. Meanwhile, at the base there was hardly a soul around. Copper’s Center Village looked warm and inviting in the golden morning sun. As you can see, I had the slopes almost to myself. I did four runs from top to bottom (over 2000’ vertical drop) in only 80 minutes. It was a glorious way to start the last day of 2008.