Big Sky Montana 2008 wilderness medicine conference

As it says in my bio, I am a nurse. An ER nurse. So is my best friend SQ from nursing school, who lives in Nebraska. We have the same temperaments, like a lot of the same things, our kids are around the same age, and our friendship has held strong across the miles for over 20 years.
One day early in 2008 SQ called me , and said she was going to a conference on wilderness medicine ( I thought what's that?) and she didn't want to go by herself, and it was in Big Sky Montana, and even if I didn't go to the conference could I just go and we would have a girls trip...... My husband was on board. " good skills for you to have when the boys are in scouts" he said.

So off I flew to Billings, the flight with open seats was early so I had to wait until SQ's flight came in later in the day. Being the mom of a 2 and a 6 year old, I drove into town and went shopping, went to a movie by myself, wow ! I didn't know doing things by myself could be so fun !

After she got in, we drove the 4 hour trek to Big Sky, getting lost,  driving mountain passes in the dark, and after hallucinating about seeing cows cross the road in the dark because we were so tired, we arrived about 3 am.

The hotel was gorgeous with picture windows facing the mountain views and beds with down comforters and pillows that made sleeping feel like you were laying in a fluffy cloud.

The conference was so much more than I ever imagined, learning about altitude sickness, heat emergencies, improvisation with duct tape and safety pins, splinting, venomous animals.... The list goes on and on. I have been hooked ever since. We got to meet Jim Whittaker, the founder of REI and the first American to climb Mount Everest, and he gave an amazing lecture. It was then I learned the term " no child left inside" and committed myself to teaching my kids about the outdoors.

We did a day trip down to Yellowstone, and nearly got trampled by a bear. Literally. We were taking telephoto pictures of a Grizzly in the distance, then started walking back to the car, and little did we know it was following ut until we heard lots of people screaming when it ran past us and ran across the road just as we got to our car ! 

We also ended up whitewater kayaking down class 3 rapids - we thought we were taking an intro kayak class on a local lake. Neither of us had ever been kayaking before. Luckily the night before, in order to meet the founder of REI, we had to sit through a class on whitewater safety, which should have been called " how not to die in the river".  We made it back alive. Barely. Everyone had backed out of the kayaking outing but us two girls and an old heart surgeon from Texas. Our instructor was the county coroner. I guess he figured at least if we didn't make it , he could pronounce us dead. 

Sorry, so picture of that adventure. Just burned into our memory. 

All in all, we had a lot of fun, learned a lot, and I gained a new interest - wilderness medicine. 

We also learned that for true friends, no matter the distance, no matter the time that has passed, when you are together it is as if you have never been apart.