Long Beach in May

We wanted to go to Long Beach again with our friends, Whitney and Jason. Whitney is a teacher and needed a weekend getaway to break up the time between spring break and summer, so we arranged a May visit to the beach. It was pretty nice weather and happended to be the last weekend of spring clam season. It was the first time any of us had been clamming, at least as adults anyway. We had a good time, as long as we were finding clams and when it wasn't raining.

Blake was loving it! Giddy as a school kid!

Driving on the State Hwy, aka the beach.

They may not look intimidating, but
there are some intense clam diggers here.

We were pretty intense clam diggers too.
If by intense you mean fair weather diggers, letting our
husbands find most of our clams kind of intense.  :)

Blake's grampa is known for his notes, always with a fine tip
Sharpie, and usually very specific or precise. It's so cute!
This was what we found when we got to the cabin.
(If you're wondering, the one on right was better)

The clam cleaning begins! It's a lot of work to clean
88 clams! I helped for about as long as it took to take
this picture, because I have no stomach for the wretched
smell of clam guts and the sliminess of their insides.
Thankful for men with strong stomachs!

Men cleaning clams in the kitchen means I'm cooking
in the living room! Prep work anyway ;)

Before we left.

The cookbook we bought this time is Kathy Casey's Northwest Harvest. We used her recipe to cook the razor clams. Blake has done a lot of fishing lately and our freezer is full of cod, halibut and sea bass. I'll be needing the recipes to bring some variety to all that delicious white fish.

It's always a good time at the beach. We had wonderful food and good company!