Day 25

Alex’s first birthday went well considering we celebrated in a trailer camp in Ninilchik Alaska. We made the best of everything. Amy and Shari baked a strawberry cake and covered it with with a chocolate frosting. Grant had a blast helping to decorate the cake! We all sang happy birthday and watched as Grant happily helped her to blow out the candles. She seemed to have fun and it was fun for us. The weather here on the Kenai Peninsula has been awful. It has rained all day and everyday for the past week according to the locals. It is kind of depressing. I wish the fog would lift so we could enjoy more of the view. That’s just the way of it I guess. The weather is due to be rainy and nasty for the foreseeable future. Everyone in this RV park kind of keeps to themselves. It appears there are some serious Alaskans from the mainland who come down to fish. They have freezers plugged into the outside of their RV’s. We watched a fishing charter come back with a load of halibut. Some were big but they looked mostly like large flounder. The clamming expedition was an adventure. Amy and I got up early and went to rent clamming “guns” and buckets from the office. A clam gun is a big tube with a T handle that has a small hole in it. Placing your finger over this hole will create a seal as you dig down with the gun and as you lift, technically should pull out a cylinder of soil and the clam. That is in theory. We arrived at the beach about 30 minutes before low tide started. There were tons of locals with all of their equipment ready to go. A local game warden showed up and people seemed a bit nervous. I have noticed seeing a game wardens make rednecks nervous like seeing a cop in the ghetto will make a black person nervous. We gathered and began looking for the “show” or little hole the clam makes as its digging. This proved difficult. The holes were often subtle and an hour passed with no success. I heard locals talking about how the clamming wasn’t that good today. We did begin to figure it out and snagged some of the rascals. We ended up with about half a bucket full. Digging with the clam gun and pulling it up is actually very physically taxing and I was exhausted after the morning. When pulling the clams out you are elbow deep into a sandy mucky hole. Grant went to help, but after the cold water touched his feet he had enough. We ended up wearing him on our backs. A bald eagle circled overhead looking for scraps. We came back and cleaned the clams and froze them. Perhaps we will make chowder tomorrow. We leave for Seward tomorrow. Hopefully the truck won’t get stuck in the mud pulling out the trailer.