Huntington Dog Beach July, 2010

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A sorely-missed friend was in town: the only day she had to see Roz was the Monday holiday of the 4th of July weekend. Normally we hunker down and avoid all freeways (traffic can be awful).

Still, for Meg we'd make the trip down beyond the Orange Curtain. Also, she said I could bring the dogs and hit the Huntington dog beach while she and Roz wandered Bolsa Chica.

I do my homework: the surf was predicted to be very rough (and the tide high). Apache does -not- like loud, booming surf (see last trip). She hid under rocks or went up the cliff to hide under the car. I left her home with a lamb shank and loaded R0ndo and a ton of water into the car.

With one exception, the day was a huge success. The weather was slightly overcast (no sunscreen needed!), the beach sparsely populated (the high tide? End of holiday? It's a mystery) and we had a ton of fun!

The surf were great to watch: just beautiful! Especially because of the time of day, because the sun was low and back-lit the waves. I was impressed with the water dogs that still went into that rough surf and found their toys.

The lone exception: "high tide" at the dog beach means (as I found out) that 3/4 of the beach is under water. Fortunately there was plenty of beach at the far end and since the crowd was light, it was all good. I'm also apparently not good at gauging the ebb and flow of the tides: I determined that the tide was going out and that we could walk back to the far lot on the beach. Not so. There was a reason we kept meeting people and dogs that were soaked coming in the opposite direction. We were almost back when a swell roared in. R0ndo was almost swept out to sea (clutching desperately to a rock) and I got soaked up past the wallet-line. After that we decided to risk climbing up the cliff to the walk.

Lunch was at Alice's Cafe in the Park (fantastic breakfast/lunch place that allows dogs on the patio--they have the best cinnamon rolls!!) and dinner at the Lazy Dog Cafe (also lets dogs on the patio). Traffic back home turned out to be no problem! Just a fantastic day!*



*Apache was over-joyed to see us and get her dog-walk...tired as I was, I re-loaded the dogs and took her for an hour-long trek over her favorite bridal trails.