Days 2!

Hello from Twin Creeks Bed and Breakfast! We are "group-blogging" tonight, and we are excited to tell you about our past few days!


On Tuesday we went to Missoula! We first met with the director of the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (the UCEDD), called the Rural Institute. (The Rural Institute at the University of Montana is the equivalent of the Kennedy Center at Vanderbilt.) At the meeting was the director, and about ten of his colleages, directors of the different programs they have! It was fascinating to learn about how they tackle issues of health and disabilities in such rural populations. Dr. Dykens, from Vanderbilt, got to share many things we do at the Kennedy Center and also got to ask many questions and learn about the rural programs.

Adrian: "It was a lot of fun asking questions about life in Montana and about the Indians. And also, they talk about how the Indians lived in the past, on hunting for food while the female Indians make clothes."
Josh: "I am having fun. We talked in the meeting about disability and us with disability, they talk about college, and they talk about school buses and transportation and medicine.
Travis: "I was impressed by the caliber of people that they gathered just to talk to us. We had the directors of so many programs, it was almost like if you had any kind of question of any part of the world of special needs or anything, it was at that table. It was pretty intense."

It was really great to have an inclusive group meet with such important people, and there was a great deal of mutual respect in the room.


We hiked up to the "M" in the top of Mt. Setinel.


Adrian: "The hike was really fun. We hiked all the way up to the M. We had bottles of water and sunscreen with us, and clean clothes and deodorant. I love taking pictures with the girls. We saw the football field from the M."
Josh: " I love hiking. We have fun hiking. Me and Adrian's buddy, Travis, we have fun and we got a biggest competition to see who was the fastest walker to the M, and Travis fell and I was the first one up there."
Steph: "In my opinion, it was a really fun group activity, where we all got to do something together. It was one of those uniting, shared experiences. It was fun to have a specific goal; if we were hiking just to hike, we probably would have stopped earlier."
Jessi: "We got to walk around Missoula, and go to the Big Dipper Ice Cream store! It was a really small, but beautiful college town. I cannot believe that it is possible to go to college amongst such scenery! Mountains on every side, and literally right outside our meeting room was a mountain."

Josh: We have fun with the ice cream place we went to. We tried that first shake, huckleberry ice cream.


On the drive home, we said, "We can stop anywhere you want, we're in no rush!" We found a random sign with an arrow that said, "Interpretive Outlook," so we stoped and interpreted! It was really a gorgeous views. After that, we talked about dinner. The girl planners were like, "What should we have?" Finally, we were really excited about our consensus to have Tomato, Avocado, and Cheese sandwhiches grilled on the grill. And then, we realized, "That has to be unappealing for the guys," and asked them, and they confirmed. We saw a sign for Taco Shak, and the next thing we knew, the three boys ordered 15 tacos for $14, and ate all of them while the girls enjoyed their "estrogen sandwhiches," as named by the boys. "They were delicous."




When we came home, we watched the amazing sunset, and took a "hike" around the bed and breakfast property.
We then had a "team pow wow" where we built an awesome fire, and made s'mores! We sang songs around the camp fire, and had sharing time. It was great to get to know each other even better.