How to spend a Saturday

Somehow we never made it to the North Shore last year for our traditional summer meal of deep-fried clams, onions, and potatoes, so this year, my sister forced me to pick a date, and with brother-in-law and infant niece in tow, we headed up to Cape Ann.

We got our clam fix at Woodman's, after dealing with the eternal dilemma: the clams at the Clam Box are slightly better and crisper, but the Clam Box doesn't serve onion rings, and the onion rings at Woodman's are magnificent. Plus, Woodman's proudly fries everything in lard, for extra heart-attack-on-a-plate goodness. (ETA: Apparently the Clam Box now has onion rings. We may have to plan a second summer clam trip, purely for research purposes.)

After we rolled out of Woodman's, we decided to tromp around Halibut Point State Park for a while, since my brother-in-law had never been there, and it was vital that we work off some of the lard in order to have enough room for ice cream later. It was my niece's first encounter with the ocean, and it was fascinating watching her 8 1/2 month-old brain attempt to process all that water -- which is to say, she spent most of the time with what her dad referred to as the "Keanu Reeves 'whoa'" expression on her face. Halibut Point is an old quarry, and the "beach" consists of gigantic granite boulders, not sand; we love climbing around on the rocks, but unfortunately, the niece is a little young to participate in that activity, so we stuck to the paths and the larger, flatter rocks.

Finally, there was ice cream (reverse chocolate chip) and the drive home, during which I fell asleep due to carb overload. But all in all, it was a pretty good day.

(More photos at Flickr, as usual, including one of the niece for those of you on my Flickr contacts list.)