Fun at the Beach

We've been busy doing lots of fun stuff--hiking, biking, touring old forts. More about those in another post. This one's about clamming. When we were at the beach yesterday at low tide, we started talking to the folks who were digging for clams. It got us interested, and later in the evening, when the local cop on patrol in the park stopped at our campsite to say hi and give Ellie a biscuit, he also talked about clamming. They next thing I knew, I was driving to Fred Meyer (7 miles away) buying a clam gun. That's me and that's a clam gun, the closest thing I'll ever get to a gun of any kind. It doesn't shoot--it's sort of like a posthole digger. At 8 a.m. this morning we were out on the beach stalking razor clams. Since we had little or no idea of how to proceed, we followed some other folks around for awhile. Everyone on the beach was so friendly and helpful. One nice couple pointed out some clam holes for me and talked me through the digging process. Woo hoo!! My first clams! I dug up two under their supervision and then graduated to finding them on my own. I ended up with four nice big ones and two little ones. Nowhere the daily limit of 15, but it was a slow day for everyone else too. Ted, the park cop, had given us instructions on how to clean them, and that went much better than I had expected. Next, I chopped them, sauteed them with some onions and garlic, and served them over pasta. Pretty yummy!