The bus ride to Hyden

Monday, August 9, 2010. They say that your first trip into the mountains is the hardest. My first trip into the mountains of Kentucky was accompanied by a lot of anticipation and the sense that it took a lot of work to get to the beginning of the journey, but the journey itself to the school was easy. After Stephanie Boyd from FSMFN called role, 21 of us clambered aboard the bus at the airport.
The ride took a little over two hours, with a stop at a truck stop for us to buy snackcs and use the restrooms. The bus driver was not the regular driver, but was the owner of the company. We did notice that he talked a lot on his cell phone while negotiating the heavy traffice out of Lexington. However, the drive was beautiful, the woods denser (at least from the road view) from what I imagined.
Once we reached Hyden, the bus driver/owner had to stop and ask directions to the school and a man obliging showed us the sharp turn in front of the school and a few more sharp turns as we headed up the mountain. At the last turn, the bus driver had to back up the rest of the road, which was a little nerve wracking as it was a narrow road with a steep drop on one side and the driver obviously had never done this before. (The bus needed to be backed up this final stretch of the road as there is no where for it to turn around at the top of the road.) Fortunately, we did not go over the side of the mountain nor were we electrocuted by the low lying power line.
At Hyden, we got our name badges, schedules and room assignements. My room was on the first floor of the Haggin dormitory which was the original dormitory for the early Frontier Nursing Service nurses. (This building has three floors.) I was assigned a roommate to share the small room, but as it happened, she decided not to come to Frontier Bound and I had the room to myself. Only one bathroom to each floor, and each bathroom has only one toilet and one shower. The morning showers will be interesting with a dorm full of women.
After we settled in our rooms, they had a light supper for us: salad, fruit, and dessert. Afterwards, we met in "The Barn" for our evening sessions. This building really did used to be a barn to house the horses of the early frontier nurses. Now it has been converted into a technology lab, library, and classrooms. The highlight of the evening was listening to the stories of Jean Fee, an early Frontier Nursing Service nurse. She talked of her work as a district nurse and midwife, saying that she liked the horses. "Horses and I seemed to get along," she said. She talked of providing health care when doctors weren't available (everything seemed to go along just fine in the doctors' absence) and how little one really needed to help delivery a baby (something to clamp and tie the cord).
After "circling up" and singing the Frontier School Of Midwifery and Family Nursing's school song, we left to go back to our dorms. Natalie Wipert, one of the students I had "met" on Facebook invited me, along with several others, to her room for a glass of wine. Probably about a dozen of us shared 2 bottles of wine Natalie had brought with her while we shared "war stories" of our various practices. I really like these women.
Didn't sleep real well this first night. I was excited, sleeping in a new bed, and I was cold! Definitely too much air conditioning, but I dare not say anything as the third floor is not getting ANY air conditioning in this 100 something heat.