Technicolour milkshake
Traversing Southern California with everyone's favourite sweet boys, The Dans.
NEWPORT BEACH, CA – Dozens of wildflowers dotted the green hills along the Coast Highway as we pulled off the highway and into the long line of cars leading toward Crystal Cove Shake Shack. It was a Saturday afternoon and the roadside restaurant’s open-air property was packed with people. Overweight parents in dark sunglasses and velcro baseball hats sat across from gangly teenage children, all braces and floppy hair and late-model iPhones. Tesla and BMW drivers in Fear of God sweatpants pulled into parking stalls, twirling silver keys on their pointer fingers. All of us trying to get a bite of the American dream; grilled hamburgers topped with two slices of American cheese.
The ash-grey sky that greeted us at LAX two days earlier had burned off under the white, hot sun which now hung listlessly overhead, a tungsten lamp on the world’s stage. For locals and non-locals alike, Southern California’s recent spate of cold weather defied expectation and explanation. Before he knew I was Canadian, one cashier told me “We really need summer,” a statement that feels almost ludicrous in a place where, until recently, the average forecast on any given day was basically 24°C and sunny. But even in her flop era, the state finds a way to sparkle. Where others cook (Headlines: NYC to bask in summer-like temps the rest of the week”; Catalonia in grip of worst drought in decades; Severe heatwave engulfs Asia causing deaths and forcing schools to close) she flourishes. Winter rains bring forth a sea of flowers; superblooms burst forth in the grasslands in glorious technicolour. A sea of green and gold is suddenly visible from space.
Rain or shine, Orange County is the last place anybody expected us to reunite with Dan Zajac and Dan Kell, famously known as “the Dans”. But when two of your best friends cross the Pacific after three years abroad in New Zealand, you pack the Herschel carry-on and place your seat back and tray table in their upright and locked position. And so we found ourselves driving south in Dan Zajac’s rented Nissan, out from the liminal space of Irvine and Costa Mesa, to the bleached sands and sapphire blue of the Pacific Ocean.
It was his 32nd birthday.
That morning we toured around Newport Marina harbour in a rented boat listening to Dan’s favourite songs (Beyonce-Virgo’s Groove, Talking Heads-Psycho Killer, Nelson-(Can’t Live Without Your) Love And Affection, to name a few) before walking the wooden pier. Fishermen in long sleeve shirts and bucket hats leaned on the railing, reels over the edge. Forever a creature of habit, Dan Z. was happy to chauffer us through a highlight reel of How He Had Spent His Working Vacation, weaving through weekend traffic, out of Newport and into neighbouring Corona Del Mar. We stopped and took in the seaside panorama from Inspiration Point, before carrying on down the road, to Shake Shake and, eventually, his favourite of all the SoCal suburbs, Laguna Beach.
Compared to the neon green, sans serif hovels of a certain east coast competitor, Crystal Cove Shake Shack is distinctly Californian, on par with microchips, movie stars, and the Manson murders. Rather than sit idle in the line for parking Dan Kell, Leah and I exited the car, following the scrubby brush toward the yellow one-story building which has overlooked the cove, in one form or another, since 1945. Dan Kell ordered a cookie dough milkshake to split with the birthday boy, while Leah and I ordered two Cove Deluxe Burgers, with fries, and an Oreo milkshake to share. As we waited, sun and sea air whipped off the water. Later, as we walked around Laguna Beach Leah would note “It’s a far cry from Edmonton.”
Back in the car, we pulled two steaming containers out of the grease-dotted paper bag. It had been five hours since we last ate, and I was hungry. I turned to Leah “This is pretty good but not better than Burger Crush.” She considered this as she took a sip of the milkshake. Cookiecutter McMansions whirred past in a blur. In the front seat, Dan drummed along to a song by The Wonder Years.
It’s funny the little things you remember, the little things you miss. Birthdays and drumming along in the front seat, gossiping about work. The familiarity that can only come with decades of friendship.
“I’ve been here nine times,” said Dan as we pulled into Laguna. He had been in California for less than six weeks.
As the sun was setting, Dan turned onto Park Avenue. We followed the winding two-lane road past Laguna High School (alma mater of one Lauren Conrad) with its standalone Arts and Mathematics buildings, and into a small, lush canyon. My ears popped as the car climbed further and further. Eventually, houses re-emerged. The harbour and the highway and the hamburgers all seemed like a distant memory. We parked the car in a cul-de-sac and followed the short dirt path to the Top of The World.
As we walked Leah spoke. “I can’t get over how green everything is.”
We arrived to find the lookout empty except for a man and his German Shepard. We starred out at the coast. It was golden hour and a thick haze hung over the ocean and the mountains. It was Dan’s 32nd birthday and I wasn’t sure when we would see him or Dan Kell again. I pulled out my phone and took a picture. Sunlight was reflecting off the water and the haze had obscured the horizon so you couldn’t tell where the ocean ended and the sky began.
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