7/2/17 Ride C2C Day 15 Libby Dam to Eureka

7/2/17 Day 15 Libby Dam (Dunn Creek) to Eureka
Miles: 56.4. Total Miles 747.7

Elevation - don't know, my Garmin gizmo ran out of juice.  BUT it was A LOT of up (and down).

Out of the campground at 7:30am with an immediate 3 mile climb up to Libby Dam. We fulfilled our tourist responsibility and stopped to have a look around.

Libby Dam

The next 50 miles was simple: the Koocanusa Lake was on our left and we were either going up 5-7mph or going down 15-18 mph. All day. Again, at about 10am I was feeling an overwhelming urge to sleep (while riding my bike) and announced I needed to get off the bike. So we stopped, leaned our bikes on the guardrail, Doug pulled out the ground tarp, prepared some food (chicken in a can on tortillas) and then I took a nap in the shade of pine trees - for 45 minutes. I think I must be dehydrated and will be diligent about drinking more and taking the electrolyte pills (Hammer Endurolytes).

Koocanusa Lake all day long

Off we went - either up or down - pretty much for the rest of the day. We stopped at a water access campsite to filter-pump more water from the river for our bottles.

Filtering water with our Katedyn pump. MMM-good

Up and down, up and down. At about 50 miles we came to the first store at an RV camp near Rexford. We were so hot that we parked our bikes at the top of a quarter mile walk down (seriously down) to the store at the lake for cold drinks and salty peanuts

The final 8 miles into Eureka were brutally hot. We were considering a motel room - except there are no motels. So here we are at public park on the Tobacco River behind the townhall. After we set up our tent in the blazing heat 95+ degrees, we took a cool dunk and float in the river with a couple of other families doing the same thing.

Dinner at “The Front Porch” was cool inside and we plugged in our electrics for a charge. We are sitting at a picnic bench in our park, chatted with a group of guys who are hiking the Pacific Northwest trail from Glacier back to Seattle. And I see that I’m out of juice on my iPad. Time to sign off..