Day 1: Eureka to Jennings, MT

On our Great Divide Adventure 2 years ago, we abused the Reynolds Family by staying with them two nights. They were wonderful hosts and so we came back. We didn’t make them put us up this time but we enjoyed church with them yesterday and this morning we left the car at their house and rode off.

While staying in Eureka we found a rail trail and started out on it at the Eureka Towne Park. It took us to the 90 mile long Koocanusa Reservoir. if you don’t know where that crazy name comes from it turns out a lady won a contest naming this Reservoir. Since its the Kootenay River oh, and the reservoir extends across u.s. and Canada she smartly combined the three: koocanusa.

Koocanusa was to be our constant companion the rest of the day. After the rail trail we popped on Highway 37 for a few miles. Then we took a bridge across the lake and begin pedaling down a Scenic byway. It was scenic and there were almost no cars.

As we continued our journey South and West towards Jennings we enjoyed the views and actually had a nice Tailwind. At one point we were greeted by a moose running along the side of the road. Fortunately it was relatively small although it was a bull and it continued to run down the road away from us.

The afternoon turned unpleasantly hot but eventually we arrived at the dam. It was just a couple of miles down hill from the damn to our night at Heron’s Roost cabin in Jennings.