Day 4

Getting up on the fifth couldn't be easier.  It was quiet (except for the birds), the weather was cool and dry, and we had to get to Apgar for a morning Jammer Tour.  It had been cold the night before and I somehow managed to get tangled up in my sleeping bag.  My back was mad at me for that.  

We planned on making pancakes with the eggs and Bisquick we bought in St Regis but had scrambled eggs instead.  We fried bread in a little butter on the fry pan but it was too much unlike toast to satisfy the pickiest eater.  It was kind of like french toast although I wonder if even French eaters would like it.  Is french toast popular in France?  I liked my coffee anyway.  

After breakfast, we rode our bikes back to Apgar Village for a trip on one of Glacier's "red busses" -- the jammer tour.  Our bus left at 9:30, we thought.  We found a bike path that took us through the woods for most of the trip.  The ride wasn't bad at all, a very little of it was on a busy road, but Ailsa found the long uphills a bit tough especially since we had to be to Apgar on time.  The kids were definitely not used to riding off road, even on a fairly well groomed trail.  Again, we have to get them out more.  

We got to Apgar at 9:15, just as a red bus was pulling out.  I tried to chase it but it kept going.  We hoped that it wasn't our bus.  We waited until 9:30 and another bus pulled in and it was ours.  

It really was fabulous.  First of all, the red busses are great.  They aren't normal busses.  They are from the 30s, Each row of seats has its own door (on the passenger side) and a running board to get up into your seat. They have a canvas "sun roof" that stretches the length of the bus, and seem to be all window.   The seats are bench seats and we were able to sit four across.  We were right up front.  

Our driver was named Jasmine.  She was a young woman from Wisconsin in her second year as a bus driver in Glacier.  She explained that the drivers were called "jammers" because until the busses were rebuilt by Ford a little less than ten years ago the manual transmissions had to be jammed into gear.  She also explained that we wouldn't be doing the normal tour.  The pass along Going-to-the-Sun Road was still snowed in.  Apparently there would be no big horn sheep or mountain goats for us.  Still, it was still going to be beautiful.  

Our first stop was the Lake MacDonald Lodge to pick up some more passengers.  We had about 15 minutes to look around and it was traditional lodge style (as if I know what that means) with lots of wood and taxidermy, a large open atrium with round wood (i.e., trees) as the columns and rails.  It had a 20s Native inspired feel to it.  

We picked up four more people at the lodge (bringing the total to 9) and discovered that we would have a fairly small tour -- much better than the packed bus that Jasmine said she'd sometimes get.  We drove along Going to the Sun right up to the barricades to stop you from going further.  We got off there and went a little bit onto a trail called Trail of the Cedars.  We saw a great little waterfall and decided to come back later in the day to walk the whole trail (we'd heard it was not to be missed).  From there, we stopped at a few more water spots and then went out to see if we could find any lowland wildlife like bear or moose.  Suffice it to say that while the natural setting and the tour (with explanations about the natural setting) were great, we didn't see any bear or moose.  The time of day wasn't right for that anyway.  

Afterwards, we rode back to our campsite, left the bikes and took the car back to Lake MacDonald Lodge for lunch.  Same menu as the Apgar Village site (same beer, too).  I split venison and bison sausage and salad with Olivia; the beer was still good.  We went to the store there and picked up a can of bear spray.  It was fifty dollars.  I think the idea is that you don't want to use it so badly that you avoid bears in a better way.

Afterwards we went to Trail of the Cedars.  This was a fine, if short, hike.  It was a lot like what you might see in Oregon but we noticed way fewer mushrooms.  I imagine that it's a function of the time of year to some extent but I would have thought there'd be more.  Olivia really wanted to hike up to a mountain lake but my back was bothering me and I kind of didn't want to do that.  

We went back to Apgar, got wood for a fire andthe makings for smores.  We went back to the campsite, built a fire, had a healthy dinner of smores (and I had some red wine from Zerba).  Afterwards, we threw lots of different types of pinecones and boughs into the fire to see what they did and then went to bed.