It all started with a letter from from my granddaughter, Molly McClure who lives near El Dorado Kansas. Molly was in Mrs. Anderson's 3rd grade class at Rosalia, KS Elementary. On September 14, 2001 Molly wrote the following.

Dear Grandpa, There is a pink note in the bag (envelope) and it will tell you some stuff to do with Flat Stanley. Our class thought it would be neat if you took some pictures around KC like the sign at Worlds of Fun and Pinguin Park, Oceans of Fun and Science City or whatever you think would be fun for his vacation. His picture needs to be in some of those pictures. Love, Molly

Since Stanley's vacation with me would be for several months, I thought that Stanley could do a lot more things in Kansas City and go some other places too. He could travel with me to a few places and some of my friends might also like to take Stanley to see some other parts of the world.

I decided that I wanted Stanley to really experience the culture of Kansas City (and some of the other places too). I wanted Stanley to go home understanding why most people think of three keywords when they think of Kansas City: Bar-B-Que, Jazz, and Steaks.

The events surrounding September 11, 2001 changed all of our lives. Molly's Flat Stanley experienced that too along with all of the rest of us. While a lot of Americans did not want to travel much, Flat Stanley did and he has been from California to New York as part of his visit to Kansas City.