We first moved to from Maryland/Pennsylvania to Colorado in the summer of 2010. I was only 8 at the time, so I don't remember being too involved in the decision of moving, and I'm sure if it was all up to me, I would have opposed. It sounded pretty scary, as you can imagine, packing up and heading out to a place I've never been to. Basically starting over in life; new house, new friends, new town, new business. But, it was best for the family, my parents had decided. The law was more loose out there, more places to park and sell food. Even though Big Bear's Bus Cafe didn't end up working out, We would all agree that FoCo was a total win.
It's impossible to explain my entire 6 year experience of living in Colorado in one paragraph, but I'll try to sum it all up quick and spare you some boredom. During our time there, we lived at two different houses, and went to two different schools (I guess my sister went to three). We found our people, found new jobs after we moved on from the bus, and found our place there quickly. My parents loved the friendly environment and the general love of biking and beer there. I loved my school, and made good friends. Basically, stuff happened. It was great. By the end of 8th grade, I was really sad to go.
The thing that made me most sad about leaving were the people and my school. The charter school, Polaris Expeditionary learning was, I'm not kidding here, really dope. I called the few awesome teachers I had by their first names, and made student teacher connections like no others. The students there were incredibly accepting of all races, religions, sexuality, gender expressions, and bullying was a very uncommon thing. The schools principle was "Crew not passenger" so you can imagine it was very hands on. We would have field trip weeks called intensives 3 times a year, where we would stop all regular classes and focus on one thing, for instance cooking, painting, hiking, camping in Moab. Students got to pick what they wanted to do. So, I had a real fun time there, and learned more than I would have at any other school. I had been in a class of about 45 students for 3 years, and we had spent so much time together. I made amazing friends through the years and I miss every one of them so much it's hard to describe. But hey, when adventure calls you gotta answer.
The transition from bus to house was hard but in some ways, liberating. I feel like Americans are always consuming. Buy, buy, buy, and fill your house with fancy junk you don't need. When you move onto a 270 square feet school bus, you realize how much of your stuff is junk. Now the clothes, that was hard. I had to fit my dresser and closet filling collection of clothes into two drawers. I got rid of maybe half of what I had before, though, which surprised me and my family. I also went from a queen sized bed to a... uh... very tiny sized custom couch cushion bed in a VW, which wasn't easy either. We all had to sacrifice to move on to the bus, but it was stress relieving.
Overall, leaving Fort Collins was the hardest thing I've ever done, but the opportunity to travel America and do what I love to do on life is impossible to pass up.
