Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow [62]
Not people trying to go surfing—although it can be hard to find a parking space at some of the more popular surf spots nowadays—but commuters on their way back and forth from work.
So Boone missed the golden age of surfing. He figures maybe he got in on the bronze age, but to him, the 101 is still the Highway to Heaven. “I never saw the golden age,” he explained to his dad one time. “I only see the age I’m in.”
There are still some golden days along the 101—particularly during the week, when the road is relatively free and the beaches aren’t crowded. And the truth is, you can still find an empty beach some days; you can still have a break all to yourself.
And there are days when that drive along the 101 is so beautiful, it will break your fucking heart. When you look out the window and the sun is painting masterpieces on the water, and the waves are breaking in a single white line from Cardiff to Carlsbad, and the sky is an impossible blue, and people are playing volleyball, and your brother and sister surfers are out there just having a good time, just trying to catch a wave, and you realize you are living in the dream.
Or drive it at dusk, when the ocean is golden, and the sun an orange fireball, with dolphins dancing in the break. Then the sun flames red, and it slips quietly over the horizon and the ocean slides to gray and then to black and you feel a little sad because this day is over, but you know it will begin again tomorrow.
Life on Highway 101.
This is the road that Boone takes, following Teddy north along the coast.
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Boone needs to be on his game going through Del Mar, because there are plenty of side streets for Teddy to turn onto, but the doctor doesn’t turn off toward the beach or up into the hills; he stays on the main drag and heads north, across the old bridge over the San Dieguito River, on past the famous old racetrack, then up through Eden Gardens and Solana Beach.
Now the road, old Highway 101, parallels the railroad track on its right, through the town of Solana Beach, and then onto the narrow open stretch of coastline at Cardiff, which is one of Boone’s favorite places in the world, where the highway edges the beach and you feel like you could reach out the car window and touch the water. The whitecaps are already peaking, tall, but nothing to what they’ll be this time tomorrow. Even from the van, he can hear the ocean getting ready to go off, the big swell starting to build, a heavy heartbeat that matches his own.
The big swell.
Sunny’s shot.
One wave, one macker, and it changes her life.
One great photo and she makes the net, the magazines. She gets the sponsorship she’s been working for and it’s her takeoff. She’ll be all over the world, making the tournaments and the big wave contests. She’ll surf Hawaii, Oz, Indo, you name it.
“Where did you just go?” Petra asks.
“Huh?”
“Where were you? You looked like you were a million miles away just now.”
“Nope. On the job.”
But aware that they’re fast coming up on the funky old surf town of Encinitas and the great right break called Shrink’s, arguably the best wave in SoCal, maybe the place to be when the swell rolls in.
If he weren’t on the job, he’d turn in at the small parking lot on the bluff and take a look at how it’s building out there. But I can’t, he thinks, because I have to follow Dr. D-Cup to locate a stripper.
Teddy drives up through Leucadia, where the big eucalyptus trees line the road on the inland side and cheap motels, drive-thru burger/taco stands, and little shops take the ocean side.
Ocean side, Boone thinks … Oceanside. Isn’t that where Mick Penner said that Teddy takes Tammy for their little matinees? Well, he thinks as he follows Teddy through Leucadia and across the bridge that spans the Batiquitos Lagoon into Carlsbad, we’re on our way to Oceanside.
The road drops back down again and flanks the long stretch of open beach, with its promenade along the breakwater, then takes a right jog into the faux-Tudor village of Carlsbad, with its English shingled roofs. There’s a store