Red Jammer versus Yellow Jacket. Clearly no winners today.

Being a Red Bus Tour driver at Glacier National Park has a lot of ups and downs.   A virtual psychological and emotional rollercoaster.  There’s a certain something about getting up every morning and not knowing what the day holds for you. Every day I still get what seems like butterflies in the bottom of my stomach. It feels as if I’m walking on stage in a crowded opera house. The script you think you know, but you are always finding gaps. Every tour composition is different. Every person is different. EVERY single day is different. New. Fresh. Scary. And yet so beautiful at the same time.

This morning proved to be no different. I always get up early. Normally a couple of hours before my tour shift begins. Gives me a little time to get into my grove for the day. Maybe jot down some notes for future posts, and just feel the AM come alive. I like to look down towards the Saint Mary Valley from the RV park I’m staying. See how those mountains are waking up for the day. God mountains mean a good tour.

Today got to see Singleshot Mtn, one of my favorites, light up in the beautiful warm alpenglow of the sunrise. It is going to be an awesome day. And my tour from the day before was equally as awesome. Both emotionally (and monetarily) fulfilling. I want to carry that momentum forward.

But I’m afraid it was not to be. I started and pre-checked good old bus 94, also known as Merritt, which was the name given to it in 1936.   My first pickups for the day were at the Many Glacier Hotel, about 20 miles down the road. I point old Bus 94 North and start the drive to one of my favorite places in the whole park (sans the dirt part of the entrance road).

I’m out on Hwy 89 doing an incredible 55 mph and thought I smelled something different in the air. A big diesel truck had just passed me so I thought nothing of it. Then I smelled it again but this I’m much stronger. It was gasoline. I had topped off the tank the night before so it was probably just a few spilled drops. But a couple more miles down the road and I smell it again. A very strong smell of raw gasoline.  Hmmmmmmm.  Not good. My mind was spinning.

I slow down to take the left-hand turn at Babb for the Many Glacier Road. I rolled down the windows. I smell LOTS of gasoline. I pull over to stop and let the engine idle to quickly jump out and have a look for anything obvious. Sure enough, I see the problem. There is gasoline blowing out of the hood vents of the left side of the engine cover, and flowing like a river down the top of the fender. I immediately pulled into a stone gravel lot in front of the Babb Cattle Baron Supper Club.

Other than the fear of being burned to death there were a couple of other thoughts going through my mind. First of which I did not want to be the guy known for starting a fire alongside the road and burning down half of Glacier National Park. You know, burning down the place that you truly love that has brought you so much joy and happiness that has transformed you into a joyous happy person? Yeah. That would suck. Not gonna be that guy.

The second thing on my mind is the fact that a COPY of a Glacier Park White Motor Company Model 706 tour bus was restored and went to auction last year selling for $1.3 million. I do not want to be the guy that burned one of the remaining original ones down to the ground.

My only solace is that IF I did burn down this wonderful machine, and IF I did start a brush fire, I would also burn down the town of Babb. Which I would most likely get a medal for. Maybe a nice statue. Or at the very least a pretty flagpole. You have to always look at the upside.

Once everything electrical was turned off and the spilled gas was just (hopefully) soaking into this dirt parking lot where it could not engulf me or the world around me, I made a phone call. I was just on the edge of where I could still get cell reception. I let the main office know, and I let the Many Glacier Hotel know that I was down. I was still an hour and a half out from the start of the tour. Don’t worry. Plenty of time to get another bus to me.

But it was not to be, there were no spare Red Buses today.  Now I’m stranded in Babb, and my 16 tourists are waiting for an awesome tour that will never happen.  With every tour filled through the end of the summer, they will not get another bite at the Glacier apple. Sad for me but even sadder for all the people I could not share my massive bank of knowledge with.

So what happens when a jammer breaks down in Babb, Montana.? It’s pretty simple. You hunker down in the shade of the vehicle and wait three hours for the lead mechanic to drive from the main shop in Columbia Falls to your location. Good old Cal showed up in a service truck, we exchanged some niceties, and then he got to work.

It turned out that good old Bus 94 had just got a remanufactured engine installed and was returned to us in May of this year. And somehow with only a few 1000 miles on it, the driver-side fuel rail had come loose. It had not been completely tightened down during the engine swap and worked loose, shooting gas out of all four fuel injectors over the entire engine. There are a lot of wood structural and trim pieces in these old 1936 White vehicles. It was just one spark from going up like the Hindenburg.

After much cursing and swearing at the company that had done this refurbishment, Cal got everything cleaned up and was able to blow out most of the residual gas laying upon and around the engine. We fired the bad boy up, no explosion, no fireball, and I still have all the hair on my face. The day is pretty much done so time to just take Merritt home and give her a good wash and put her to bed for the night. No tour for me.

While I was standing there and watching Mechanic Cal fix Merritt, a yellow jacket for some reason decided to hover around the right sleeve of my white shirt and fly up underneath and sting me right on the elbow tip. So very nice of the little *******. I never even saw him. It felt like a pretty good sting. Arm is just a little puffy.

Or so I thought. Over the next couple of hours, it was getting a little more swollen. But not a problem.

Then as I got back to camp and got things cleaned up, it really started to hurt. By that night it looked like the calf of my leg. By the next day, I had a giant sausage for an arm and could barely bend it. Which really really sucked because I had the next two days off and was planning to do a couple more epic hikes and then close it out for the season.

Instead, I found myself medicating with a little Benadryl which did nothing but make me sleepy. Even though it expired in 2017.

Fortunately jammer Bernie was also available to play doctor and stirred up some kind of a concoction with Peach flavored Crown Royal. Again all that did was make me sleepy, but at least I stopped feeling the pain.

And they also got some fantastic sunset views from his RV spot here at the Beargrass Compound, which shall now forever refer to it as.

So what does Dave do when he has his last two real days off for the summer of 2022? And he can’t hike? Well, let’s just say you know a Jammer is a real Jammer when he goes for a Jammer ride on his day off.