I am an overzealous vacationer. My holidays typically leave me hung over, burnt-out, overtired and generally disagreeable, because simply sitting on a beach—while a fantastic concept—invariably becomes stultifyingly boring after about two hours (three hours for topless beaches).
    Hence, last month I found myself piling into a rental car with friends Krishan and Wilson to embark on a road trip. Our game plan, in typical guy fashion, was moronically simple: We gave ourselves four days to drive up the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle. Further details were hard to specify, since it didn’t occur to any of us to buy a map or guidebook before we set out.
Thus we began our trip aided only by a 7-11 map so old that California was labeled “Mexico.” Luckily this was just a temporary guide, and after only 800 miles we stopped and picked up some proper books so that we wouldn’t miss anything important the rest of the way. Bickering, which had been present at a low level all along, now intensified.
    Before buying the guidebooks, we’d made our way happily along the coast, blundering into tourist attractions but not seeking them out. I was in favor of continuing this practice, while making exceptions for important items of interest. My comrades agreed, except that they defined “important items of interest” as “everything.” My friend Wilson, in particular, was beset by an urge to chronicle our every mile by taking pictures with his endless supply of disposable cameras. And since we were driving north, all of the picturesque turn-offs that he wanted to stop at were on the wrong side of the road. This meant that our tourist stops typically began with Wilson madly cutting across the southbound lane as I and the driver of an oncoming logging truck witnessed each other’s silent screams. For the effort, Wilson now has enough pictures of the California coastline that, were he to lay them end-to-end, would be somewhat longer than the California coastline itself.
    Here are some other things you can argue about on a road trip: When to stop for gas. Where to stop for gas. How to get where you’re going. Where to go in the first place. When to call it a day. How fast to drive. Whether or not to pass that truck. Which hotel will smell bad. Which one will be too expensive. Whether souvenirs must be purchased. Whether stopping at McDonald’s is against the spirit of discovery, even if you are ready to eat the spare tire. Why Krishan is pouting, and if it’s because nobody’s offered to let him drive, that would be because he said he didn’t want to, and if he really does he should just say so instead of acting like a woman and expecting us to interpret his mood.
    One thing that we all managed to agree on, however, was stopping at a winery in the Napa Valley. We randomly chose the Mondavi vineyard and signed up for a tour. I quickly realized that going on a wine tour with your male friends is second in gayness only to donning leather chaps and singing Village People karaoke at a bar named “The Manhole.” As the couples in our group introduced themselves (and they were all couples), the Mondavi woman came to Wilson and me and teasingly asked if we knew each other. Completely confident in our masculinity, we said no.
    Perhaps as a backlash from the winery tour, one of our subsequent stops was an appropriately manly pursuit: riding ATVs on the dunes in Oregon. Before we were turned loose, we got a tutorial on the lethality of ATV riding from a mildly brain-damaged fellow at the rental place: “If you jump these machines, you… will… die. If you try to turn on the side of a dune, you… will… die. If you fall off and die, you… will…” And so on. After letting this grave speech set in, we hit the dunes and drove carefully and responsibly for at least 30 seconds, after which a sort of testosterone challenge erupted between Wilson, Krishan and me to see who was the biggest badass. I’d have to give that honor to Wilson, who managed to jump off his machine shortly before it began a barrel-roll down one of the sheer slopes. Apparently, Brain Damage Man had a good point about trying to turn on the side of a dune.
    When it was all over and I got back to Boston, it was as I expected: I needed a vacation from my vacation. Anybody know where to find the closest topless beach? *