By Haley Leibovitz

We started our celebration of our nation’s birthday by being able to sleep in late. We then went to Littleton, Colorado where we stopped at Columbine High School. This is the location of the major school shooting in 1999. It was a very powerful experience for us to see the actual high school, because it resembles many of our schools. When we pulled into the parking lot, Billy discussed with us the tension of visiting Columbine High School between making it a tourist attraction and using it as a learning tool to help make sure something like this doesn’t happen again. He said we could go take pictures of the outside of the school, but out of respect to the students and residents who are still trying to have a normal life in Littleton, we would not go into the school.

Once we got off the bus we were approached by a man who asked us what we were doing. Once he heard about our journey, he told us he was a social studies teacher at the school and a lifelong resident of Littleton. He wanted to tell us his story. He took us on a tour of the school and showed us where the tragic events occurred and tried to impress on us that Columbine is just like any other school and that it is safe and that the students and parents are good people.

After Columbine we had a beautiful drive to Boulder, which included some fun dancing on the bus to some great music. Our first stop in Boulder was Naropa Institute – a liberal arts college started and influenced by Buddhists. They place a strong emphasis on meditation. After a tour of the small school,we met with Steven Taylor who teaches in the Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied Poets. He took us on a historical journey through the Beat generation and explained the importance of the writings that came from Kerouac, Ginsburg, Burroughs and other writers and poets from the 50s and 60s. Many of us really enjoyed the school and took applications to look over.

Then we walked to Pearl Street, a very hip and granola-ish strip of shops, street performers and food.

We ended our day by seeing the new Michael Moore movie, “Sicko”. The movie exposes some of the issues concerning the health insurance industry. He does this by telling healthcare stories of Americans and comparing them with stories from such countries as Cuba, France and England. The movie was both funny and educational and a great thing to learn about as the 2008 election grows closer.

We then boarded the bus for our overnight ride to Salt Lake City.