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.

Although he was scheduled to fly back home to New York City from Colorado Springs only two hours after his early morning StoryCorps appointment, the time crunch didn’t stifle Ed Riegelhaupt’s enthusiasm for participating. Ed happened to be in Colorado Springs visiting his daughter, Stacey Bloomfield, when she asked him to participate. Stacey wanted to record a specific period in her father’s life. In 1960, Ed quit his job because his wife Joyce Firstenberg Riegelhaupt, a cultural anthropologist, wanted to study villages in Portugal.

“I was working for Union Carbide Corporation…and I knew she had to go into the field as part of her PhD. I knew about this from the very beginning, but wasn’t worried about leaving my job because I knew I could get another job as a financial analyst. I felt really very comfortable and enthusiastic about going overseas with her. It was a chance for a great adventure…”

I first caught a glimpse of Cem Salahifar (above, left) outside of the MobileBooth talking into his cell phone while pointing it left, right, up, down and every direction. He told me later that he was making a video for his fiancee Yesmin in Istanbul. Cem makes his home…everywhere. He’s currently getting his MBA in Colorado Springs, but flies to work in Italy, and from there travels to Istanbul to visit Yesmin. In the MobileBooth, he told me the story of how he rekindled his relationship with Yesmin, a lifelong friend with whom he had lost touch. He talked about their reunion in Turkey only a few months ago, his proposal at Rome’s International Airport, and their plans to marry in Istanbul. At the end of his recording, Cem told Yesmin how much he loved her, both in English and Turkish. He’ll be giving her a copy of the interview soon…when they meet in Istanbul next month.

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!