Memorial Day Weekend

The Frey family has a traditional trip to the coast every year on Memorial Day weekend. All of Brian’s aunts, uncles and cousins get together for a few days that usually involve tons of food, lots of storytelling, and definitely some fishing, crabbing or clam digging. It’s always a good time (my first trip was three years ago when Brian and I were still dating), even if the weather doesn’t exactly cooperate. (Let me just say here, as a non-native Oregonian, that I remain skeptical when they tell me that the Oregon coast can be hot and sunny. I certainly have not experienced it yet!). Brian’s parents own a little cabin near the town of Neskowin, and his uncle owns another cabin just up the hill. It’s a five-minute walk from a wide, sandy stretch of beach.

On Saturday the low tide was really low, and it was perfect for clamming. This was my first experience digging clams. It involves rolling up your cuffs for a long, mucky trek across the marshy-muddy beach down to the water. It really isn’t so bad once your feet get numb from the cold, and once you find a path that doesn’t leave you stuck in the mud in waist-deep water. Once we finally made it out to the water, we started raking the sand, and it didn’t take long to reach the limit of 20 clams each.

Another Frey family tradition that I had never experienced was crabbing. The majority of the group sat on the deck of a restaurant by the pier with coffee and hot chocolate, while the others took turns going out in the boat to set and periodically check the crab pots. Unfortunately, the crabs weren’t as plentiful as the clams this weekend, and we ended up with only about 7 that were large enough to keep.

And of course, there was all of the cleaning to be done when we got back to the cabin. It takes a long time to cook and clean 17 people’s catch of clams. I’m not a fan of eating the things myself, but there was plenty to go around!