We’ve had a tradition the last several years of spending the last week of summer vacation on Dauphin Island, Ala. — kind of a “Last Hurrah” before everything gets crazy with school. A little slip of an island, it’s mostly residential. There are no chain restaurants or hotels. There’s one ice cream place, one pizza place, one combination grocery/hardware/fishing tackle store.

The first year we went, we didn’t even know where we were going. We just threw stuff in the car and headed south. No hotel reservations, no planes or shuttles to catch, no overpriced tickets to water parks… And no expectations.

It was the most relaxing vacation ever.

What is your favorite summer vacation? What do you do to celebrate the end of summer?

Jeni Donlon is a deputy metro editor for The Commercial Appeal. A Hoosier and graduate of Indiana University’s School of Journalism, she came to Memphis in 1990 via Texas and Florida. She answers to a lot of titles: wife, editor, adjunct professor, Weight Watchers dropout, piano student, former PTA president and book club organizer, but mostly she answers to “Mom.” She is married and has two kids — Grace, 8, and John William, 10 — two cats and a dog.