Of all the vacation types you can take, there's one that is always the favoritest

Sitting here at my computer sunburned, sore, and smiling at the end of the weekend reminds me that vacation time is coming, and I hope you're rested up enough to handle it.

There are a lot of different ways to take vacation, and too many of them involve hard work, which kind of misses the point, I think.

We've all taken the standard mega-vacation to the Grand Canyon or Disney World or somewhere, and come home worn out, broke, and thinking, I need a vacation to recover from this vacation. This kind of vacation takes weeks of planning, well-timed logistics, and a couple thousand bucks spent in breathtaking chunks. Been there, done that, got the t-shirts (at $21.99 each.)

Now that our boys are grown and have busy lives of their own, and while my vacation and my wife's vacations don't match up, I'm quietly relieved not to be mounting expeditions to Orlando and such. For a while, I can explore all the alternatives to the big vacation trip.

One alternative is the oxymoronic "working vacation." In other words, it's eight Saturdays worth of yard work, home repairs and motorcycle maintenance strung back to back. On a working vacation, the vacation part is that I can sleep in, avoid shaving or dressing up, and generally cook and eat too much. High points include trips to the hardware and building supply stores, and an occasional well-earned nap.

Luckily, I enjoy this kind of vacation, up to a point, and with a 50-year-old house and a rain-fed yard and garden growing like crazy, I reckon I'd better. We do take short trips during a working vacation, but nothing that requires heavy packing, air travel, or dealing with in-laws.

The working vacation doesn't cost nearly as much as the megavacation nor does it require as much recovery time, mainly because whatever stress you generate with your to-do list is offset by the satisfaction of having everything squared away with energy left over, for once.

Now there's a third type of vacation, one which I hesitate to even mention, because I don't even know what to call it. I learned about it when my older son, Philip, wrote a "My Favorite Vacation" paper in the second grade, and mentioned in passing the theme parks, camping, and big trips like that. He ended the paper, though, with something that will stay with me forever: "But my favoritest vacation is when my Dad just plays and plays with me and Charlie."

That stunned me, and changed me. Of all the places we'd gone and things we'd done, his most favorite was when I seemed to have all the time in the world just to play with him. It wasn't anything special, just stomping over Italian hillsides, playing with GI Joes, working on bikes together, shooting BB guns, just stuff.

To Philip and Charlie, I guess it seemed I was always gone to wherever the Navy needed me, helping keep the world safe from Saddam or the Boogyman. For me to be able to clear my calendar just to get down on the floor and play with them all day was far more wonderful in their eyes than I realized, and I knew at once I was a fool for not feeling the same way.

But I know better now. It's a vacation we found we could squeeze in at odd times and places and the boys' natural nose for fun led us to adventures that we remember forever.

So you have my permission to take a break from the usual vacation. This year, feel free to stay home and just play with your kids. It may wind up being your favoritest ever.