One of my absolute favorite places to visit is Durango, Colorado. It is this gorgeous little town nestled the Animas River Valley and surrounded by the San Juan Mountains. In high school I was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Durango was a short four-hour drive away. My girlfriend and I would take off for the day and go shopping and enjoy lunch in Durango. There's a great ski resort there. The slopes, the lodge and the ski village are all wonderful! If you ever get the chance you should definitely visit. My family and I visited a few years back and we had a wonderful time. My eldest daughter fell in love with the place and has been bugging us to move there ever since.

Here are a few of our local favorites:

• Gazpachos Restaurant

I highly recommend the Posole and Carne Adovada. The stuffed sopapillas are pretty spectacular too!

• Purgatory Lodge at Durango Mountain Resort

• Shopping in downtown Durango

Downtown Durango is a Nationally Registered Historic District that's been around since 1881.

And, of course, no vacation is complete for us with out some fabulous outdoor adventure. Besides the wonderful skiing, Durango offers many outdoor adventures:

• Rock Climbing
• Biking
• Fly Fishing
• Hiking
• Horseback Riding
• Kayaking
• Rafting (a favorite of ours)

Check out our guide in the back left of the photo (right behind me). Doesn't he look like Matthew McConaughey?

Bear Grylls

I hope you are all having a wonderful week. Today I'd like to feature another of my favorite adventure athletes, Bear Grylls. Perhaps you've seen him on Man vs. Wild. That's where I first learned of him and thought 'Wow! Here is a guy who takes adventure to the extreme, but knows how to survive and how to truly live--not just for himself but for others."

There are so many things about Bear that I admire:

• He served his country in the British Special Air Service.

• He was one of the youngest people to summit Mount Everest at age 23.

• He pursues his passion for a living (adventurer, explorer, expedition leader)

• He is a Christian with an amazing outlook on life. Here are a couple quotes that exemplify his outlook:

“If you risk nothing you gain nothing”

“The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word - extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are brilliant or talented or just better than me… and the more of these words I heard the smaller I always felt! But the truth is often very different… and for me to learn that ordinary me can achieve something extra-ordinary by giving that little bit extra, when everyone else gives up, meant the world to me and I really clung to it…”

• He is a devoted father and husband. He's recently authored a book for his sons called To My Sons: Lessons for the Wild Adventure Called Life which sounds wonderful!

• Last but not certainly not least, Bear is a giver. He participates with many charities and has led  record-breaking expeditions which in turn raised more than $2.5 million for children around the world.

If you haven't seen Bear in action on  Man vs.Wild, I highly recommend checking it out. My family loves watching Bear on his amazing adventures and I hope you will too. Bear is exactly the type of hero I love to bring alive in my novels.

If you love Bear Grylls, check out his wife, Shara — she’s an amazing woman!