While sitting in my chair at my home recently, I began to reminisce about a past vacation, one that took me to the Black Hills with my wife Oralee.
As I recall, after spending 10 days on vacation in the Hills, I returned home to 24 messages on my answering service.
It’s nice to know you’re missed, but most of the calls were from people who wanted me to write a story.
I mention this only because my wife’s comment when she saw the number of calls was: “Aren’t you supposed to take a vacation?”
Our vacation was spent at a resort west of Keystone. We had vacationed many other years at that resort and enjoyed the scenery and watching the 1880 Train pass by five or six times each day.
I never get over the beauty of the Black Hills and enjoyed observing other vacationers who had come from all over the United States and Canada.

That year Oralee kept track of the number of different license plates she spotted during our days in the Hills.
We had planned to stop at the Crazy Horse monument, but the weather got a bit nasty on that day, and we stayed in the cabin instead. On another occasion, we were going to take in the Mt. Rushmore Memorial. However, the weather again was bad, and we gave that up as well.
The weather had a major impact on our stay, as we turned on the heater several evenings to keep warm. There was a heated pool at the resort and it was filled with people just about every day.
Most of the tourists we spotted during our stay came from South Dakota, with Minnesota and California close behind. The state of North Dakota also had a number of people stopping in Keystone or Hill City or Custer.
While talking to some of the tourists, we were surprised to find out several had heard about Huron. “That’s the town where they’re trying to recall the mayor isn’t it?” one guy from Florida said. Another asked,  “Do you really think the people will vote for a $1.5 million opt out for education?” At the time I didn’t know the recall was rejected because of insufficient signatures.
No one made a comment on the proposed new swimming pool at Huron College. That kind of surprised me.
I made no comment on any of the remarks.
We had planned to stay in the Black Hills through the Wednesday, returning home on a Thursday. But I made a terrible decision and decided to return on Wednesday - one of the hottest days of that year to date.
The only good decision I made on that day was to stop only three times, driving the distance in as short a time as possible.
When we finally turned into our driveway, I must admit there was a moment of welcome relief. But spending Thursday night in Campbell Park made me wonder if my decision to come home when I did was a good one.
We began discussing the next year’s vacation. I believe we looked into an earlier vacation, like in June before the weather got to hot.
I sure miss the days spent with my wife, Oralee, and our time together.