Charles E. Burchfield, J.J. Lankes, and William J. Schwanekamp were friends who went on a sketching trips together, their ultimate being a trek to Vermont to visit Robert Frost. During the 1920s, the three were equally interested in drawing, painting, and printmaking, usually looking to the regional landscape for subject matter. The Fateful Trip focused on artworks and documentary materials that chronicled their friendship, their chronicles traveling to Vermont, and the separate paths they took as time went on.