July 18, 2016

Miles: 0

It felt great to sleep in a bed with cotton sheets. We woke up hungry and around 7am piled into Karen’s car for a grocery run. Starbucks Coffee and food, other than bars, were too hard to resist.

Our zeros tend to revolve around food, and today was no exception.

Walking through the aisles at Albertsons was overwhelming. There were so many options and yet nothing looked good.

On trail, our options are limited. Life is simple – we eat what we have. We enjoy that simplicity.

We took a moment and tuned into our stomachs. This led Andy to Tillamook butter and Laurie to the cheese aisle.

We cooked nachos in the microwave and topped them with salsa and avocado. Laurie also enjoyed yogurt, granola and strawberries while Andy polished off half a stick of butter with bread and raspberry and apricot jam. Seriously, the chunks of butter looked like slices of cheese.

“Guess my body is craving fat” he remarked through a big grin. He was happy!

Thru hiking is wonderful. We eat large amounts of food without guilt.

We packed up our things, found a cheaper room for tonight and took a family field trip to REI.

This is our sixth visit to a REI while on the trail. Today we didn’t need or buy anything but figured it was a cool place to hang out while Derek bought new shoes.

We spent the afternoon blogging, talking with friends and family and doing laundry at the most tech savy laundromat.

The machines took credit cards and the price went up based on the temperature of the water and other features. Best of all is they had free wifi.

Around dinner time we walked a quarter of a mile to Dang’s Vietnamese Restaurant. While living in San Francisco we loved ethnic food and were very grateful to find something other than fast food or pizza.

After a delicious and filling dinner we stopped at Grocery Outlet on the way home in search of ice cream. Their selection was small but they did have Tillamook ice cream.

We bought a half gallon of vanilla bean and Derek bought a pint of Ben & Jerry’s peanut butter and banana frozen yogurt.

Laurie was very excited when we returned to the room. She sat in bed with a tub of ice cream in her lap, blueberries by her side and a huge smile plastered on her face.

We ate until we could eat no more. Then after fifteen minutes we ate some more. We finished the cartoon. Not sure if we should be frightened or proud.

Today was a Tillamook kind of day. Butter, cheese and ice cream. Really, we can’t think of a better way to spend a zero in Oregon.

Tonight we are grateful for Tillamook dairy products and Vietnamese food.