Sam And Saundra's Second Time Around - Part 58

Sam And Saundra’s Second Time Around – Part 58

Alaska 

7/9/11-8/3/11 – Soldotna, Ninilchik Beach 

Before I go any further, I need to introduce you to a few people.  Sam and I hardly ever get a chance to get bored with each other, not because he - I mean we - can’t be boring, but because we always seem to run into great people.  In Soldotna, we meet up with friends, aka: ‘The Boys’, from Portland (some are Sam’s old co-workers who are not old), who come up as often as they can.  Russ, Ed, Brent and Tom were here for almost a week in July.  We also met up with some of the caravan group that made the Mexico trip with us two years ago.  Judy and Dennis from Maine, Denise (who was able to have her son, Devin and Christine with her for a short time) from California, Sherry and Doug from Maryland, Hugh and his brother, George, from British Columbia and last mentioned but way not least, Dez and Arlene from California. We also run into Ed and Pat, managers at the RV park, and the couple from Germany that we met here two years ago and Sam helped show them the Red-catching technique. Also Cecil at Fred Meyers, whom we always seem to bump into on the river. Now that the cast of characters has been introduced – onward.

Papa And Owen Digging Claims - See Valcano?

Dig 'em, Clean 'em, But Won't Eat 'em Owen

While waiting for the Reds to make it to the party, we check the tide table and find that the tides are going to be the lowest and highest in years – exciting, record making tides. Minus tide to almost minus 4. We pull Sam’s father’s day gift out from under the bed and shine it up.  A brand new stainless steel clam gun.  No more blisters for Sam.  We go the first time with Owen.  Ninilchik Beach is our destination.  Same signs that say “No Beach Access” and “No Vehicles” and ‘Walking Traffic Only” are still standing, and being ignored.  The narrow, one-way, deeply, deeply, deeply rutted, eroding into the river, pathway is very busy with trucks, cars and ATV’s filled with people rushing to the beach.  The volcanoes are still beautifully watching our activity from across the Inlet.  We get a nice day and after pulling our feet out of the shifting, wet, sucking, yucky (scary at times) sand, we make it to the part of the beach where the clams are squirting fountains – marking their location for us.  We easily get our limit of 60 each.  We had a blast.  Owen even started getting them by digging into the sand with his bare hands, making a big hole.  From one such hole, he dug out 5 nice sized clams.  We get wet and muddy and sandy and take our time returning to Brutus.  Sam did get Brutus down on the beach this time.  He had the 4 wheel drive worked on and drove him right on down through the round, smooth rocks and pebbles and wet and dry sand.  Hardly had a problem getting down there and hardly had a problem getting out.  Hardly.