Saturday, August 18, 2007

#3 - Eureka




The small town of Eureka is tucked away in the northwest corner of Montana, about nine miles south of Canada. Ron lived here in 1955-57 and thought it would be fun to stop by for a 50-year visit to see how things had changed . . . or not changed.


We set up camp for two nights in a small campground seven miles west of town, along the steep banks of Lake Koocanusa, a long lake that formed in the 1970s behind Libby Dam. The campground had a small marina and gravelly beach on the lake, which made it very popular with water-oriented yahoos, including many Canadians. Our neighbors parked their trailer there for the entire summer and commuted back and forth from Calgary. There were lots of boats, off-road vehicles, kids, bicycles, golf carts and other dust-churners during the day. But they were all considerate and it was very quiet at night.

Lake Koocanusa


Bonnie is getting good at RV cooking, especially using the foil technique. She wraps up all kinds of good stuff and we put it on the barbecue. Delicious and with virtually no clean-up.

We spent most of a day in Eureka, visiting the historic village, the old dilapidated Great Northern Railway station where Ron’s grandfather worked until about 1960, and took a walk on the Eureka River Walk, a very pleasant paved pathway along the Tobacco River. We ran into long-time resident Ann Baney at the historic village. Ron’s mom taught school in Eureka the mid-1950s and Ann remembered substituting for her. We had a nice chat about old times and changes over the past 50 years. Ron’s best friend in Eureka was Dennis Dierman. We learned that his mother, Marge Dierman was living in a local nursing home, so we paid her a visit. She was pleasantly surprised to have someone from the distant past drop in. She was very alert, remembered Ron and we had a nice chat.

Eureka River Walk and first house in Eureka

1 comment:

ScienceMel said...

Seems some places don't change as much as others over time. That was very sweet of you to drop in on old friend.