On our last cruise with John and Ellen Benson and Juan and Lynne Matute, Lynne mentioned that she would like to finish her quest to visit all fifty states. She needed to go to the Dakotas to do this. This sounded interesting to us. We would see new territory and continue our enjoyment of traveling with the Bensons and Matutes (John, Juan and I were classmates at Pomona College). Once we got home, Lynne showed us a tentative itinerary and dates. We would all fly to Denver and start our round trip there. We were in. ​

As usually happens, we suggested a major change. We already said that we would start early so that we could go to grandson Tim's graduation form Colorado University, Boulder. Then I thought that we could take a couple of days to visit Dave and Jeannine Fast in Kansas City (Dave was another classmate and my roommate at Pomona). After all, isn't Kansas close to Colorado? Lynne was gracious to change the itinerary so that the Bensons and Matutes would fly to Kansas City and start their round trip there. ​