On June 11, I have bought a ticket on American Airlines to fly to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with one stop at DFW Airport in Dallas. I have a return ticket on June 14.

My lovely wife has the exact same schedule to Sioux Falls one week later, beginning on June 11.

We take short vacations throughout the year because we have to publish a paper every week and it is almost impossible to be gone at the same time.

Why South Dakota?

Well, we are actually going Michell, South Dakota, which is about 70 miles west of Sioux Falls, which is in the southeast corner of the state near Iowa.

And we are going to see our daughter, our son-in-law and our 2-year-old granddaughter and 8-month-old grandson.

Last summer, we drove to South Dakota (about 675 miles) on a long Fourth of July weekend (Wednesday through Friday). We left on Wednesday afternoon and arrived on Thursday morning.

Then we drove back on Sunday. It’s about a 12-hour trip including stops and meals.

July 4th is on a Saturday this year, so we don’t have an extra day to make a driving trip.

I fly out at 6:30 a.m. and get to Sioux Falls at 11:30 a.m. Then the drive to Mitchell is about an hour (the interstate in South Dakota has an 80 mph speed limit).

All these plans are contingent on a deadly virus that started in Communist China.

Susan has already canceled one flight to South Dakota due to the pandemic. Fortunately, American Airlines is very flexible on flight cancelations these days due to the coronavirus.

But if there is an uptick in Oklahoma, Dallas or Sioux Falls, we both might have to cancel plans again.

I am pretty confident that things will settle down in Tulsa. Doctors and scientists are hopeful the coronavirus will fade in hot weather and we have that in Oklahoma. The same goes for Dallas.

Sioux Falls could be a different story. They have a meat processing plant there that was hit hard by the virus with hundreds of workers infected. The Smithfield Foods meatpacking plant had 545 cases linked to the plant and 438 tested positive. At that time, that represented about 55 percent of all the infections in South Dakota. (As I am writing this on May 4, South Dakota has had 2,245 confirmed cases and 11 deaths).

My hope is that Sioux Falls is also back to normal on June 11. There were infections in Mitchell and throughout South Dakota but none as bad as Sioux Falls – the largest city in the state.

In fact, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, unlike Oklahoma, never issued a “stay at home” order. She refused to shut her state down despite the pandemic. That move was so popular that a local construction company in Pierre, the Capitol, threw an impromptu parade in her honor because she didn’t order the shuttering of non-essential businesses.

The parade had hundreds of cars, which says a lot because Pierre is not very big.

Gov. Noem was blasted by the national liberal media for not bowing to their viewpoint and closing down her state. And because she’s a Republican.

Of course, in early March she urged the people of her state to take the coronavirus seriously. She wanted non-essential businesses to let their employees work from home. She said for social gatherings should be limited and she suggested restaurants to do take-out only. And she urged everyone age 60 and over plus people with medical problems to take extra precautions.

And she left mayors make most of the decisions about what to shut down. People can hunt, fish, ride bikes and do a lot of stuff outside. (South Dakota is the pheasant hunting capital of the United States – if not the world).

South Dakota has 20 counties with no coronavirus infections.

On April 13, Gov. Noem said her state would be the first to hold clinical trials for hydroxychloroquine – the anti-malaria drug that has helped coronavirus patients.

And guess what?

The people of South Dakota are pretty much doing the right thing. If they can stay at home, they are. Little League has been postponed. Students were taught at home. Theaters shut down.

Common sense prevailed.

I got an email from American Airlines detailing what precautions they are taking with each passenger.

They are sanitizing all the seats and common areas after every flight. They have special filters on the air supply. I went online and selected my seat and the flight was pretty empty (that could change). It appears that packed airline flights may be gone for a while.

I don’t plan to touch anything in DFW. I will carry hand sanitizer and wear gloves and a mask.

So, we are going to South Dakota because they have a wonderful Governor and because we think that seeing our young grandchildren qualifies as “essential travel.”