I have come to consider it a period of necessary rejuvenation. It occurs every off-season but is most pronounced every spring.
Locals just vanish.
They don't necessarily go on vacation, though some do. They aren't sick, though I have noticed that we will sometimes say we are. At least it is this list of things we pretend to accomplish, which lets me know all my friends have not vanished off the face of the earth. I run into them at the local hardware store or at Walmart or any of several nurseries around the Enchanted Circle, or as far flung as Albuquerque's mega home-project stores. We don't intend to.