Whitefish, Montana

Adam and I just returned from Whitefish, Montana earlier this week after going on an amazing ski trip with the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP).  The WWP (www.woundedwarriorproject.org) is a non-profit organization designed to provide many different services and opportunities to injured service members.  It is a wonderful organization and we were lucky enough to get to take a trip with them to Montana.  So I will just share a little about our trip....

We spent six days with six other wounded warriors (three of whom had spouses), three staff members from the WWP and many amazing volunteers from Whitefish and other places across the U.S.  And everyone was so wonderful!  All of the warriors and spouses had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed our trip.  The staff was awesome, so fun to be around and you can tell they all really love their jobs.  And the people of Whitefish were so gracious, generous and just kindhearted people!  There were so many people who went out of their way to make sure we had a wonderful vacation and who thanked us for being there.  It just made you never want to leave!

We participated in all kinds of fun activities on our trip.  There were three days of skiing, a day for the Whitefish winter carnival and a day for dog sledding/snowmobiling.  I was a little (or actually a lot) nervous about Adam skiing, but he did AMAZING!!  Who would have thought a year ago that he would be snow skiing this year?!  Not that I should be surprised since he has been able to do everything he's set his mind to since his injury (just like before).  All of the warriors had their own ski instructor and Adam's instructor was great and ranked in the top 100 in the country.  He is actually certified to teach the blind how to ski.  Since Adam is "visually impaired", he wore a vest that said so the first day or so he skied.  But at the end of the second day when the ski instructor, Link, and everyone else figured out that Adam was not having any problems seeing people, trees or anything else, Link decided Adam no longer needed the vest.  Like I said, Adam did awesome skiing and surpassed me on the morning of the second day (which may not be saying a lot ;0).

Whitefish has a winter carnival every year where they have a penguin plunge (which raises money for the Special Olympics), a parade through downtown Whitefish and other fun local activities.  Most of the warriors (including Adam) and staff, one of the wives and a lot of the local people from Whitefish participated in the penguin plunge.  I backed out the morning of--thank goodness because it looked really cold!  We were also a part of the parade that same day and had a great time participating in it.

On Sunday a group of us went dog sledding.  Another group went snowmobiling but Adam and I had done that before and wanted to try something different.  We were so glad we did because dog sledding was so much fun!!  The man who owned the business has 109 dogs and they all LOVE to run and pull sleds.  It was an hour long ride (about 11 1/2 miles) through a state park that he has a permit to sled through.  What an awesome adventure!

The rest of the trip we spent having great lunches/dinners, doing some sight-seeing at Glacier National Park and doing some shopping in downtown Whitefish.  We had a great week and have so many people to thank for making it happen.  And now have lots of new friends!  Here are some pictures from our week:

Groomer ride up the mountain our first day in Whitefish

View from top of the mounain

After skiing

Warriors and spouses after skiing

Adam before the Penguin Plunge

Adam, staff and other warriors with penguins before the plunge

plunge "pool"

Adam getting out of the COLD water!

Before the parade

Parade float

Warriors at VFW after parade

Dog sledding

Dogs ready to go!

Sledding!

Superbowl party

Downtown Whitefish

Link (Adam's ski instructor), Adam and Larry (volunteer from Whitefish)

Adam and JP, another warrior

Last dinner