“What did you do on your summer vacation?”

. . . is the long-ago question asked by my teachers. I am reminded of this because of my trip to Wyoming, where I was born and raised. Well, here would be my answers:

• I visited my relatives. I spent time with my mom. We worked on her quilts together. I came to realize how frail she has become.

• I slept in three different beds but brought my own pillows. I went to bed late and I slept late, too. My Metroplex allergies cleared.

• I ate good food, sometimes too much. My sister-in-law filled my plate too full of too-rich food. I fixed my “little” sister’s salads or plate lunches when she walked home for lunch. My other sister cooked fresh salmon for me and regaled me with genealogy tales late into the night. My brother fed his three sisters his grilled-outside burgers and homemade potato salad.

• On Independence Day I sat in the shade and watched a parade. I cussed the fireworks that kept me awake the night of the Fourth. I took drives in the country and was glad for my gas-efficient car. I marveled at the green grass all over the plains and at the very full lakes and rivers after a snowy winter and a rainy spring. I celebrated the animal moms and the animal babies all along my route.

• I saw the dozens of teepees and brush arbors of the traditional Northern Arapaho Sundance. I watched and listened to men, women and children from the Wind River Reservation, in beautiful Native American costume. As the sun was setting they drummed, chanted and danced for us tourists in the circle around them.

• I looked at Wyoming’s blue sky and blue and white mountains. I sat by a small rushing river, and listened to the wind in the pines. I stuck my fingers in a cold high mountain lake.