I spent last week hundreds of miles from home with more than 100 people who have never been to our corner of the world. 

A few had come near — those with spouses who grew up in Poughkeepsie, Kingston or Middletown; one who spent summers in the Lake Wallenpaupack (Pa.) area; one who had vacationed in Catskill.  

Each time they asked where I was from, my answer was always the same — upstate New York, the Catskills. 

The answer was always the same. No matter their familiarity with the place we call home, they’d let loose something akin to a “wow,” followed quickly by “It must be beautiful there.” 

Yes, I quickly assure them. Raised on the Delaware, I got to grow up in a national park. 

Literally. 

It’s a fact that I never thought to stop and appreciate as a child but one that now takes my breath away. 

What’s more, as a child growing up in a place where I could always breathe fresh air, always find a place to kick off my shoes and step into sparkling water, always look around and see something beautiful, I never quite realized ours was the sort of place that others yearn to visit, that people who live in far flung places known by reputation as magical. 

With the end of the school year just behind us and the July 4th holiday just in front of us, we are hitting that time of year when people truly begin to flood into our towns to enjoy the magic that we get to call our very own. 

It’s that time when many business owners will make a large portion of their revenue for the year, when service establishments will find themselves stretched thin, their staff running, running, running to keep up with the constant flow of people. 

It’s a time that can be hard for those of us who live here, but not for the reasons one might think.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we might be just a little bit jealous of the people who get to come here — the ones who fill our rivers and restaurants ... and coffers. 

When visitors come to vacation in this beautiful place, they get to spend their time simply soaking in the beauty and the magic. 

Those of us who live in this wonder, on the other hand, spend our days going about the usual drudgery of our daily lives, shopping for groceries and picking up the mail, going to work and making dinner. 

It can be easy to forget that we live in the sort of place that makes people say “wow, it must be so beautiful.”

So as we enter this, our summer season, I challenge us all to set aside the day-to-day at least a few times in the weeks to come. I challenge us all to force ourselves to remember that we GET to live here.