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My wife decided we could afford a long vacation this year. I was suspicious at first. We don't always (make that rarely) have the same idea of what constitutes rest and relaxation.

It isn't really a getaway if the expense is such that we'll be paying for it long after we're dead, or if it involves a complicated itinerary, or if it's something or somewhere one of us doesn't like.

For example, she wants to visit the Holy Land. I don't. Not only did that place end badly for Jesus — along with a promise/threat that it would end even worse for people like me later — but it also remains fractious enough to end badly for us right now.

Meanwhile, I want to go somewhere utterly absent of people and phones. A 500-square-mile patch of rainforest all to ourselves is my idea of perfect.

There is a hitch. Both of these getaways cost about the same as law school or a new liver, which is why they've been only "bucket list" items for as long as we've been married. This morning, my wife announced the perfect compromise. We'll stay home and redo the backyard. It's arid enough to be the Holy Land and has enough weeds to seem a bit like a rainforest.

When I offered — rather loudly — that gardening and landscaping resembled our respective dream vacations no more than Congress could be compared to a think tank, she explained otherwise.

The backyard is full of bugs and vegetation, and is fenced off from other people. All that's needed to complete the jungle illusion is running the sprinklers an entire week, turning off our cellphones and borrowing some monkeys and a jaguar.

Me • "What about you? Haven't you always wanted to see the Dome of the Rock?"

Her • "Yes, but I'll just look at the back of your head and pretend."

Unconvinced, I suggested that a pretend vacation made less sense than last year's presidential race. She countered with:

• The sprinkler system more or less resembled an ancient aqueduct.

• Me complaining about pulling weeds was akin to protesting the clearing of a rainforest.

• Picking up dog droppings was ecologically kind.

• The blazing sun had a certain equatorial charm to it.

• Finally, and most probable, the grandkids who sneaked over the fence could be seen as an angry indigenous people intent on driving us away or insane.

My wife was thrilled with her idea. Not only would this pretend vacation cost less, but it also would accomplish something of value. We would be just as tired when we "got home," and the backyard would look fabulous.

Even better, I might lose rather than gain weight on vacation, which I haven't done since I let Sonny talk me into rafting Desolation Canyon in 2011. It wasn't the river that was hard on me, but rather the fact that he insisted we stop and hike to the top of a cliff every mile or so.

Staying in the backyard — and pretending it was a rainforest — was the stupidest idea for a vacation I had ever heard. And I rudely said so.

Two minutes later, I was pushing a lawn mower around what could have been a rainforest but also could have been the effect of the knot on my Dome of the Rock.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com.