An organization gave me the opportunity to spend a week at a ski resort in Beaver, Utah with their most dedicated members from across the country. Up until the week before, the 160 of us GroupMe messaged each other and Googled pictures and ‘How to Ski’ tutorials—but we never once thought to see if there would be cell service. I guess we kind of took it for granted and assumed we would have access to all types of social media and cell reception. The resort was at the top of the mountain in Beaver, and because you probably have no idea where that is, the population of Beaver is only 3,000. If you put that in perspective, that’s about the size of an average school district. And also the amount of people they fit in this photo:

The minute we started the hour-long drive up the mountain, our Spotify cut out and everyone immediately checked to see if we still had service. The answer was no. There were absolutely no Instagram likes being loaded, texts being sent or music being played—nothing. And let me tell you, that is one big reality check. But what happened next is what started the best week of my life. People had genuine conversation, shared embarrassing stories and bonded over their love for dogs, food and coffee. We started as strangers, but that was only the beginning of a family.

It isn’t easy when you told your mom you would call and all of a sudden she probably thinks you died. It was almost like we had to learn how to hold real conversations, but not those forced ones you have with a stranger in line at a store. We had to spend an entire week together, so you learned real details about one another and made genuine friends through common interests. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to post to Instagram while lying in bed at the end of the day or how much I wanted to tweet about how sore I was from falling on my face (to put it nicely)—but I couldn’t do either.

But guess what? I survived.

Let me just take a minute to give a HUGE shout out to the staff at Eagle Point Resort. You all are the real MVPs. Coming from the east coast, I wasn’t very sure about a lot of things at the top of the biggest mountain I have ever seen—but never once did they seem annoyed with my dumb questions. I guess living in a land of no service for your whole life makes you a pretty awesome people person. They knew how to make jokes, give you a hard time (but not too hard though), and engage with you. They made me realize that the world of social media and cell phones is indeed brainwashing the world of communication.

There’s something remarkable about being cut off from the world. You learn things about yourself you never would’ve guessed and are able to go out and experience things you probably wouldn’t have in the past. As hard as it was to essentially not have a phone at all, it was an adjustment I would make again in a heartbeat. The first two days. my phone didn’t leave my side even though it didn’t work, mostly because I was so used to always having it. I couldn’t imagine it being even 50 feet away from me. But on the third day, I accidentally left it in my room before heading to the main cabin and it was about 4 p.m. before I realized I didn’t have it; that’s when I knew that having a cell phone was definitely not a necessity and from that point on my phone was not my security blanket any longer. It was just a hunk of plastic and metal covered in sparkles.

Five days after having a panic attack about not having cell service, we were heading back down the mountain and I almost dreaded going back to the world of being glued to my phone. I remember calling my mom when we got to the bottom (where service picked back up) and she didn’t even say ‘hello’—instead, she went right to: ‘Are you calling me from the hospital?’ I started telling her all about my week and I could tell she was smiling on the other end because I had the best week of my life. And that was all thanks to you, Beaver, for not allowing me to be on my phone even to check the weather. Much love, Utah; I’ll be back.