Insane Summer Roadtrip #4: Three Days of Clam Tides

Yes, these are what we spent an entire day driving for.

The object of our 1000 mile+ roadtrip: the elusive, tasty, and kind of gross-looking razor clam.

I'm back from the coast, the far off, way-the-hell down there Kenai coast, with a (small) cooler full of razor clams. It was work this year, let me tell ya, with none of those gorgeous blue skies or that stunning view across the Inlet. We spent the majority of the trip in weather that was truly coastal: 50 degrees, wind, rain... it was enough to make a diehard anti-RV person reconsider her devotion to camping in a tent. Kodiakians would have felt very much at home, Ish.

I have a dreadful case of what we call "clam hand." After three consecutive days of digging (and rooting around in the sand for fast moving ones; I am not one to let a clam get away without a fight) my right hand looks like I took coarse grain sandpaper to it; my day one blisters did not cotton well to subsequent days of playing in the mud. I don't think I've yet got all the dirt out of them.

And despite what the news reports have said about gas prices and their impact on vacationers, the itty bitty campground on the beach was full up with RVs and all the other toys folks towed down there: ATVs, smaller cars, boats, etc. As the low tide neared, even more would be clammers showed up and parked along the road to the beach.

You could definitely tell the difference between those on a mission and those who had bought a bucket and clam gun to give it a try. The former dug like their lives depended on it and only razor clams might stave off starvation. The drawback, of course, being that you have to clean them after you get them, a task that usually takes longer than digging them with none of the thrill of the chase.

Fortunately, we had a bottle of El Jimador to ease us through that task.