Day 9 started with a little breakfast we grabbed from a local store. Well I should explain “little”…. I’m eating a lot on this ride. So the night before I had a huge chicken fried steak, big pile of mashed potatoes, corn and a big salad – went to bed hungry. So when morning came I had two huge muffins, two granola bars, three cups of coffee, a big apple and a banana. This was at 8am. We started the ride with a big climb (5.4 miles with 7-9% grade most of those miles). Half way up ate a big Snickers bar and one of those beef stick/cheese stick combos and drank lots of water. Finished the climb and had another similar snack. Then coasted down the mountain and rode to a town called Halfway ~13 miles ridden. We found a coffee shop… 20 oz coffee and a huge brownie. Inhaled the brownie – still hungry. Rode to Oxbow down a beautiful valley. At Oxbow, I ate three peanut butter and honey sandwiches on tortillas, ⅓ of a big bag of Fritos, half a bag of dried cranberries, another Snickers, a granola bar and another banana. It was 1:30 pm…. Rode to our campsite and ate an entire box of Stovetop stuffing with tuna mixed in (6 servings I think), a granola bar, more Fritos and another Snickers. I’m behind calories today so I’ll get caught up tomorrow…. Clearly I’m not counting calories…. just eating whatever the body is asking for. Tomorrow will have a snack breakfast before we ride 2 miles to a restaurant to have second breakfast and it begins again….

Oh yea – misnamed…. We rode and camped in a place called “Hell’s Canyon” in Idaho.  Bad name, because I am certain Hell won’t have clear water, fields of yellow and purple flowers, huge mountains all covered with green and blue skies.  Should be called “God’s Handiwork Canyon”.  That would be a proper name.  

Tomorrow, day 10, we start heading north in Idaho towards Missoula, MT.  Ended up riding 9 ½ days in Oregon!  Big state!  Hope to be in Missoula in 5 days.  We will see!  Bigger climbs are on the way to MT.