My lovely wife made a tiny little tactical error regarding her father’s 70th birthday. Instead of saying “Here’s your gift!” and presenting something traditional, she asked “What would you like for your birthday?”
Alas, my wallet nearly imploded when his response was “I want to see America.” 
After verifying that tickets from StowAwayInTheLuggageCompartment.com just might make getting their and back affordable, it was time to select the itinerary.
My wife and her parents started making a list of all the “must-see” things in the USA. This left me to explain that Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, the Golden Gate Bridge, Daytona Beach, and the cheese factories of Wisconsin, as well as numerous other famous bits of the USA are spaced very very far apart. The sad fact is that I never got around to buying the personal jet I’ve always wanted. 
This minor oversight on my part would make seeing everything on the extensive (and growing) list take more than 6 months.
By the time tourist visas were acquired, I had a separate trip to DC scheduled. After some careful juggling of airline schedules, we managed to arrange to have them fly in a few days after me. Then we’d all be on the same flights from then on.
In the end, we had 3 cities, 4 people, and 6 cameras. First stop, DC, then a bus to New York City, a flight to Phoenix, followed by a shuttle to the thriving megapolis of Prescott, AZ (population of about 40,000). The last stop was to show her parents something other than a big city, plus to introduce them to my family.
I’ve finally gotten all the pictures rounded up and am now trying to piece together some of the more interesting parts of the trip.