StoryCorps participants arrive at our MobileBooths from all across the country. Usually their residence corresponds with where our MobileBooth is parked. But don’t tell that to these recent participants in Colorado Springs, Colorado!

Five days before her scheduled appointment, Kara Durland (middle) emailed her parents to invite them to join her at the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Colorado Springs. Gene & Jeannine Ross jumped in their car and drove to meet her—1700 miles from their home in Chantilly, Virginia.

“Well, when I found out about it, my first inclination was ‘Yeah, I want to go. And I want to drive…because we like to drive a lot,’” Eugene says. In the MobileBooth, the couple described to their daughter their different childhood experiences; their Italian, Irish, Slovak & Czech ancestry; and their love for the road.

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After driving through snow and sleet, MobileBooth West pulled into downtown Colorado Springs, CO and set up shop in front of the Penrose Public Library. KRCC General Manager Delaney Utterback and Producer Noel Black greeted us warmly and looked on with excitement as we wedged the MobileBooth into its new home. And if a big shiny Airstream trailer wasn’t enough to announce our arrival in town, KRCC went to work producing a short web video providing the curious community with an inside peek as to what StoryCorps is all about.

Set at the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains and the base of the famous Pikes Peak, sprawling Colorado Springs is home to quite a number of institutions and attractions, including the United States Air Force Academy, NORAD, Fort Carson, Focus on the Family, Colorado College, the United States Olympic Training Center and Committee Headquarters, Seven Falls, and the Garden of the Gods National Park (to name a few!). Our partner organizations are just as vast and numerous, including PEAK Parent Association, PHAMALY Theatre, Partners in Housing, the Alzheimer’s Association of Colorado Springs, African Americans in Gerontology, Pikes Peak Community College, Future Self, and more. Given the wide range of various places, communities, and organizations,  MobileBooth West will soon be filled with an equally diverse array of participants, life experiences, and stories!

So far, so good, in Colorado Springs!