Welcome back to my new Travel series for Thursdays on A Compass Rose called ‘Travel Throwback’. This is where I dive into my old photo archives and share a photograph from my travels. Fueled by the lovely snow photographs from friends I wanted to post up a wintery shot for the travel throwback. This photograph was taken at the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. At the time my family was living in Hawaii and we had flown from Honolulu to the mainland to spend Christmas with my mum and sister. However, our first stop was to visit my father at the USAF Academy. My father came here when he was seventeen to start his career as an officer in the USAF and was buried here in 2008. The gravestones were all covered with a blanket of snow and we had to find his final resting spot by digging in the snow with our bare hands. I was wearing my American Eagle house slippers with now socks and I remember how frozen my feet became. As ‘Hawaiians’ we were not really prepared for a normal mainland winter. Despite being very cold we were won over by how beautiful and magical everything looked with the blanket of white that glistened in the sun that hovered over the mountains behind the academy. No wonder my father fell in love with this place in his youth. He had always wanted to retire in Boulder, but did at least end up back in Colorado Springs.
I’m leaving my sorrows and all my memories behind to see what I find, somewhere in the shade near the sound of a sweet singing river, somewhere in the sun where the mountains make love to the sky.
– John Denver, All Of My Memories
