Tour #1. Batter up. Swing. Foul ball.

I’m really losing track of time. But I did have my first tour experience recently. Kind of what I expected. Kind of. Let’s talk a little about the first day out. I must say, I’m a pretty handsome lad in my full-on Jammer attire.

There are different types of tours. This one was called a Group Tour. Instead of an established route that is outlined in the Jammer information guide, it is more customized to a specific tour. The east side of the Park has a lot of tours coming out of Canada, given we are just a few miles (less than 30) from the border. AND… the border is actually opened this year.

These people come in one of those big motor coaches, with the huge tinted windows, plush high back seats, and all the good stuff. They show up with about 50 people, at which point we cram them into three little red busses from the Great Depression with the ragged tops rolled back. And if you missed your chiropractic appointment last week, the rock-hard straight-backed bench seats are definitely going to realign SOMETHING.

I was the third bus for this trip from just St Mary up to the Jackson Glacier Overlook (as far up the Sun Road as you can get). Logistically a group tour is hard. You need to keep all of the people in separate buses together at every stop. This means you need to make stops where all of the busses can park, which is a BIG ask given how tight ALL parking is on the Sun Road during any time of the season.

At the same time, the narrative part seems harder as well. You are talking about people who are just popping into the Park for a couple of hours. Here to just see what they can see, and do not necessarily want to dig into anything. Although I must admit, I’ve had worst jobs in less beautiful places.

There was supposed to be an AM and PM of the same run with a different group. The AM didn’t show, which gave me a couple of hours of standing around in a parking lot worrying about the PM group. It’s only three hours for 12 miles up and back. What to say? When to say it?

I never got into my rhythm. I found a couple of miles when nothing really sounded right. Talked about how some glaciers formed and rock layers. Threw in some Park history. Ick. Even I didn’t like what I was saying.

At Sun Point we all were able to get out and walk down to a lake cliff view. It was nice to get out and clear my head a little. Not sure how all of this is going to go. Nothing felt right. But again, there are more horrible ways to spend hours on a time clock.

At the end of the day, I got everyone back in one piece. A lot of things I had in my head that I thought would go well never materialized. Other things that came to fruition just didn’t work as I wanted. Everything was all kind of anticlimactic and just plain off.

Of course, it’s nice when people start slipping you money in secret handshakes. I didn’t know what to do. It felt like I was supposed to be slipping them back a baggie of drugs. Just kind of weird. As if they were paying alms to a homeless man so he could buy a new shopping cart.

Again, I’ve never been in a tipping job before. Or a job this public. Or a speaking job. Is a tour guide gig something for someone in their mid-fifties with a lifelong speech impediment? Guess I’m pushing that comfort zone this summer. Things are definitely different here. It feels like a coin flip is still in the air.