Alva Review-Courier -

A couple of times, Aunt Blanche and Uncle Ott traveled from Wichita, Kansas, to visit our family in Hugoton, and once during school holidays we kids got to ride back to Wichita with them on a weekday. The plan was for Mother to come get us on the following Saturday.

We kids knew the route to Wichita by heart, which basically followed Kansas Highway 54. But Aunt Blanche, as was ever the case, felt duty bound to take a shortcut that only she knew. And thus began her combination history and geography narrative on the subject of navigating the shortest route through the plains of southwest Kansas....