Day 9: Eureka!

July 24: It rained on and off throughout the night but the weather forecast showed no rain after 8:00am, so I slept in late and waited it out. In any case, I only had about 12 miles to hike to get into Eureka, Montana, so it's not as if I had a long day of hiking. I had time to wait out rain.

The US-Canadian border... not heavily patrolled as far as I could tell. The only border patrol agent I saw was driving a vehicle on Highway 93 during the last stretch into Eureka.

Much to my surprise, the border patrol never stopped for a visit during the night. I guess my camping on the Canadian border either wasn't a big deal or they didn't monitor the border very closely. I was almost a little disappointed that I didn't get a late-night visit. It would have given me more stories to tell later.

The rain did, in fact, stop at the appointed hour but dark and ominous clouds stayed overhead for most of the morning.

I had a mile or two of walking along an old, abandoned dirt road that now functioned as a trail before hitting the end of the trail and had to finish the day with an 11-mile road walk into Eureka. At first, the road walk wasn't so bad. It was along a gravel road--generally nice to walk on--and I didn't see any cars at all for the first couple of hours.

Eventually, the dirt road turned to pavement which is when the day's hiking deteriorated. Not only was it less comfortable to walk on, but the traffic picked up as well.

But it wasn't until the route intersected with Highway 93 into Eureka that the walk became truly miserable. It was a major highway with a lot of loud traffic. There wasn't much of a shoulder to walk on so I largely walked through the brush along the edge of a golf course.

By this time, the sun had finally broken through the clouds and temperatures rose uncomfortably high, and with the recent rains, the humidity was terrible.

I picked up four stray golf balls along the route too just because... they were golf balls. They're always fun to play with, bounce, and tear apart. I thought I'd try rolling my feet over them at the hotel in town to massage my feet as well. =)

Shucks, I didn't think to bring any golf clubs!

And at last, I finally arrived into town and checked into the Silverado hotel. My first task was taking a shower--my first in nine days! And I rested a bit.

Then it was time to head to the post office. I had mailed my laptop ahead and needed to get online to catch up with some work! Unfortunately for me, however, the post office was located another mile or two away near downtown. It wasn't close to the hotel at all. Ugh!

I walked the extra mile or two and picked up my mail drop, then stopped at the nearby Valley Pizza for dinner. I ordered a large pizza--far more than I knew I would eat in a single sitting, but my room had a mini fridge and microwave and I planned to save the extra for lunch tomorrow. =)

I wasn't anxious to walk another mile or two back to the hotel, though, and decided to try hitching a ride back to the hotel. It took about 15 minutes before a truck pulled over and offered me a ride. I offered the fellow a slice of pizza for his trouble which he seemed to enjoy but didn't want his wife to know about which amused me a bit.

And that was it. I was in for the night. I spent the rest of the evening catching up with email, fixing some minor bugs on Atlas Quest and just relaxing. Life was good!

Home, sweet home!

The trail in the morning followed a former gravel road for a mile or two.

Views through the trees were nice at times! See the deforested line marking the US-Canadian border to the right of center?

My collection of golf balls!

There's a lot of logging in this area.

My dinner at Valley Pizza was delicious!