We got going rather slowly, doing some admin things like checking our email and writing some postcards. But around 10am we were on the road. Then we stopped to buy some food because today is one of those days when our route goes through about 67 miles with no significant food shops or water supplies - we hoped to get water from Lake Koocanusa visitor center. We followed the 93 then turned to the Koocanusa valley along the 37. Our progress was slowed by roadworks for something like 10 miles - gravelly scraped surface which cut our speed by about half on a lovely downhill mostly. Lake Koocanusa is a reservoir created in the 1970s and stretching for something like 90 miles, indeed a chunk of it is in Canada. We did about half of it. It looks ideal habitat for various bears, dense forests sweeping down to the road from rounded big hills, stretching up to mountain summits, though we didn't see any, hallelujah. The road is mostly quite a way above the lake and undulating up and down quite a bit. Then the roadworks finished by the bridge that links the roads on either side if the lake and we sped up. There were about 25 miles to the visitor centre and we had a litre of water each.There are some big rock faces alongside the road - partly created by the blasting out the road - and climbers were edging up some of them. Sadly the dam visitor centre was a big detour from our side of the valley so we pushed on without more water. The mountain nearest the dam is called Vermiculite Mountain. Is that where your garden centre bag of Vermiculite came from? I didn't see a quarry so perhaps not. But it would be best if it didn't since there was a scandal about the local vermiculite mountains - the vermiculite is contaminated with asbestos which is a problem, particularly to the workers in the vermiculite factory - see more here. Libby vermiculite is all too well known in the USA... The road flattened out and the last 17 miles from the dam to Libby was completed by about 5.30pm. The bridge over the Koocanusa River was being repaired and was one way, light controlled. We let all the cars go ahead of us, they're faster than us, and we then hurtled across - still too slow for the lights which changed as we were on the bridge and we were sworn at (amazingly rude considering the lights had only just changed) by a driver who had had to wait an extra ten seconds, couldn't he work out that we'd let everyone else go ahead? Bonehead. Libby is surrounded by mountains, a pretty context, and is at the end of a classic car, or dragster car, festival. The lines of VW beetle interrupted by a large addition to the engine that pops up from the bonnet. The owners are here at this campsite - theWoodland RV Park ($32, showers need quarter dollars). The cars are put back into their oblong box garages that tow along behind huge RVs. They are just for show, indeed someone near us was celebrating their car (sort of bug eyed thing with wheels projecting outside of the body of the car) being a prize winner. America is still in love with the car. We did not see one measly bike going along Koocanusa today, yet what an excellent idea to do the loop of the lake - there is a road on each side, and it's Saturday too and it'd be an easy day's ride for a lightweight (not with panniers like we have) bike. Trains pass the campsite, so we felt at home. Libby has a railway station which is rare enough in the USA. I guess it goes through to Seattle on the North Pacific. At least the trains are not so near as some sites so I won't dream I am sleeping on the tracks....