I met Mason at University of Michigan. It must have been fate.  I transferred into the university as a junior and only got to live in East Quad by pure luck.  The advisor recommended I live on North Campus with the upper classmen, but I chose to be closer to town and my classes.  If I’d listened to the counselor, I would never have crossed paths with Mason.

Instead, we lived on the same coed floor of East Quad.  Before the semester started, we met at a party thrown by the woman across the hall from me, where I was introduced to quarter bouncing.  Mason had thick curly dark brown hair and even darker brown eyes.  He was studying computer science, back when that was a rare thing, and even had a computer in his dorm room.  In addition to that, he played guitar.  Sometimes he and his friend Paul would get together to play Pink Floyd or 12-bar blues while I sat on the dorm room floor and watched.  I was completely smitten.

Mason’s plan, when he graduated, was to move from Ann Arbor to San Francisco.  California seemed wonderfully far from the land of snow where I’d grown up.  I proposed to him the fall of his senior year.  We got married at the Student Union the month he graduated.

Together we moved to San Francisco.  Mason worked as a programmer.  I got a job at a foreign exchange program for high school kids coming to the US.  We planned our first trip to Europe for January 1991. The US started bombing Baghdad as our plane crossed the Atlantic.

Despite that shaky start, we’ve traveled every chance we’ve gotten, often connected with our anniversary or my birthday. I couldn’t have wished for a better travel partner.  Mason is good with money and maps, but he’s content to let me choose the aim of our excursions.  Whether it’s a Gold Rush graveyard on the edge of nowhere or a helicopter ride over a volcano, an ossuary in the countryside of the Czech Republic or a love hotel in Tokyo, Mason finds a way to make my dreams come true.

I’d like to dedicate this book to him, my muse and patron, my first reader and most honest critic. Here's to many more adventures.

I’d also like to thank Zoe Di Novi for encouraging me to pull this collection together as soon as I joined Wattpad.  She’s been remarkably patient with my questions and incredibly supportive.

Thanks also to Diana Tula, who designed the amazing cover.

Last but so not least: thank you, dear reader, for coming along on our adventures. I hope you have wonderful adventures of your own.

Loren Rhoads

San Francisco

August 2, 2014