Category: Annie on the beach

Splish-Splashing My Way to Ona Beach

Ona Beach park, chopped off trees, trail under water, brown sigh pointing to beach access and restroom where you clearly can't get there that way because of the flooding.

Ona Beach, about two miles south of where I live on the Oregon coast, was barely recognizable yesterday, with flooded trails, fallen trees, and other trees that had been chopped off up high so they looked telephone poles or maybe totem poles.

On this rare day without rain, snow, or ice, I needed out, but where was the trail to the beach? It always floods at the northern end. I once tried to convince my dog Annie to wade through the water with me. Being wiser than I, she refused. Now the only way to move forward through the picnic area was to follow the edge of Beaver Creek, my sneakers slapping wet grass.

The creek was wide, gray-green, and still, its edges spilling over. Would I be able to make it to the beach? And why were the trees chopped off like that?

Ona Beach park. Picnic table sitting in the middle of a flooded lawn, trees in the background, stormy sky.

So many memories are attached to this place, my own and the memories of my character PD in my Beaver Creek novels.

Fred and I kayaked here. We played badminton on the grass at an aquarium picnic where nobody brought paper plates so we ate off the lids of our potluck containers. Years later, I sat on a bench here weeping after a visit to Fred in the nursing home while Annie chewed on a bone she found in the barbecue pit.

PD kayaked here, too. She got caught by a sneaker wave. She found jewelry that had traveled across the ocean from the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. She met Ranger Dave here. It was her place to relax when life got too crazy.

Determined to get my walk in for the day, I kept moving toward the ocean and eventually came to a passable trail, crossed the bridge and emerged on the beach, where a congregation of gulls was having a meeting. Sand, sea, and sky were all shades of pale gray. Driftwood and puffs of foam littered the black-streaked sand. The beach had shrunk to a small half-moon.

Beach littered with driftwood and seaweed, stormy sky.

I was not alone. An older couple played with their Jack Russell terrier along the edge of the water. A younger woman struggled with a giant white dog who had his own ideas about which way to go. Two women passed with three big dogs. My heart ached for my own dog, who passed away in September. We had some good times here.

Clearly the past weeks of stormy weather had taken a toll on Ona Beach, part of Brian Booth State Park. High water, wind, rain, and ice had thrashed it. I learned later that the chopped trees were part of a late 2023 effort to remove dying trees before they fell. They were cut at varying heights with slanted tops in the hope of creating places for birds to roost.

Closed up in my house while ice froze the streets, rain streaked the windows, and wind blew the cover off my hot tub, I did not see the changes happening down the road. Changes are part of life. No place is exempt. I look forward to a day when the sun shines on thick green grass, all the fallen trees and branches have been cleared away, dogs and children run along dry paths to the beach, and gulls perch atop the chopped tree trunks, laughing.

Have you gotten out in nature to see what changes have occurred this winter? Please tell us about it in the comments.

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She’s a good dog, really she is


The other day I took my dog Annie to the beach. Who should be unloading his dog from the van next to my car but my vet, Dr. Hurty with his wife and daughter. I immediately glanced at Annie’s midsection and realized she was still a little chubby. Oh, I wanted her to obey me perfectly, but what dog is calm when she arrives at the B-E-A-C-H? She flew out in an explosion of legs and tan fur, scratched up the back of Honda Element and pulled so hard I almost fell down.

“She’s solid, isn’t she?” the vet said.

“Yes,” I gasped, struggling to hold on. Bellowing “Heel!” right now would do no good.

We hurried up the dune and down onto the beach, where the wind had whipped the sand into peaks and valleys. The tide was way out, but we followed the water until Annie was knee deep and clearly wanted to go farther. My shoes and socks were already soaked, so we walked and ran and jumped waves and then sat for a while in the sand. Coming in for a face lick, she covered me with the stuff. And then we walked up the trail back to the parking lot. By then, Annie was behaving perfectly. Heel, sit, stand, down, wait, no problem. I really wanted the vet to see it, but as we approached our car, he was driving away.

She can be good. Really she can.

In a small town like Newport, you run into someone you know every time you leave the house. Back in San Jose, your dog might poop on someone’s lawn and you might ignore it, knowing no one would ever trace it back to you. But here, I have learned the value of carrying plastic bags. I don’t dare leave the poo, not when the person coming up behind me is probably somebody who knows me from church or a writing class or some story I did years ago. We leave nothing but footprints. And maybe a little drool from the dog’s long, dripping tongue.

When we got home, Annie ran out to meet her brother Chico. He immediately sniffed her legs and feet, as if to say, “Hey, where did you go?” Panting, tongue still out, she just grinned.