As ***Dave mentioned on his own behalf, things have been normalizing around here after about a month of weird schedules, trips, sickness and so forth.

Perfect time for another trip, right? Ugh.

Jackie and Justin and I are off to the Black Hills this weekend to hang out with my folks, Justin’s mom, and my sister and her family. Tourist stuff is in the offing, with trips to Custer State Park, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Bear Country and Deadwood on the docket (also some golfing and nightly grilling).

I doubt very much that it will be either restful or relaxing, since our ‘cabin’ is a solid hour of driving from most everywhere we want to go and we really can’t get anywhere without involving all three cars, but it will be very nice to see everyone and vaguely nostalgic to revisit the Black Hills, which was my family’s annual vacation location from approximately 1974 to 1989.