This is the fifth in a series of stories on Maggie Allred’s adventure in Glacier National Park. Read prior stories here: Part IV, Part III, Part II, Part I.
“Why do you have a zero candle? You can’t turn zero.”
I looked down to see a small boy tortured with a blonde bowl cut questioning the single, traditional birthday candle in my hand.
“I think it’s funny. It’s my birthday today,” I replied.
“Why is your cake so small?”
“It’s just for me,” I smiled down at him, and continued inching through the line.
“That’s weeed,” he said, unable to pronounce ‘r’ sound in weird, grimaced and took his preoccupied mother’s hand.
Still in uniform from my prior shift, I proceeded through the self-checkout line with my minuscule cheesecake. Through attending funerals and undergoing surgery, my birthday track record was rocky, and I was prepared for impending doom.
I was just roasted by a child for (he didn’t know it) eating cake alone in my car, and he had every right to. The candle-to-cake ratio was nearly equal, causing the wax figure to nearly topple as it was lit. Staring at the flame, I wished for the absence of my birthday curse.
Inevitably, work awaited, so the short journey to Missoula had to end, though I hadn’t solved much. The endless wandering wasn’t really doing anything beneficial, so, frustrated, I returned home and pretended I never went anywhere.
I waited for the small number of guests I invited to get off of work. Eli was one of the first to arrive, sitting on the fake leather couch which was new and not loved enough. We discussed his college plans, life in Georgia, and his interest in photography.
As more people filtered in, I realized it was becoming my first successful birthday party. Many crammed into the small space that was the kitchen, dining area, and living room all in one. Seating included the one counter and beer coolers.
After some time in the cabin, a group of us went off to sit near the lake by Apgar Village. Apgar was a short distance into the park, a separate area including tourist-y shops and a cafe. We found many small hiding places to set up camp nearby.
Lance and Mason arrived together, with Shaya and Ayla following, pulling in while head-banging to a bass-boosted “Love Story” by Taylor Swift. Brooks, Nick and I followed them down the road through the park. In the dark with the sound of the lake barely moving in the distance, we set up camp on the picnic tables with burgundy chipped paint that was curling up — just waiting to be picked at so it could find a home underneath my fingernails.
All of our conversations overlapped to create what would sound like a new language if heard from afar.
I began to light the wrong end of my cigarette, only alerted due to Lance attempting to flip it around. By about 2 a.m, our small crew remained. Shaya took Ayla home to Sugarhill in the infamous, crayon-smelling Volvo, and Nick, Brooks, and I followed behind.
Orange traffic cones lined the road exiting the park to the housing units, and Ayla hung her arm out the window, knocking them down every once in a while.
Nick unlocked the passenger window and drove slowly along the curves as I hung my whole body out, aside from the left foot that remained planted on the seat, aggressively kicking cones down with the other one as we passed. I gripped the top of the window, holding on until we reached the end of the road and turned onto Riverside Drive, reluctantly slinking my body back into the car.
With Brooks already asleep in the backseat, Nick walked me to my porch steps, ambling up with me, waiting as I fumbled with the key that was mixed amongst the far-too-heavy keychain I carried. (A detail Mason consistently warned me about, complaining that it’d damage my ignition. It’s only gotten heavier.)
The kitchen in the condo housing, where Nick, Ayla, Shaya, Brooks, and I would spend most of our time deciding where we’d land if we wanted to rally together come October, felt very retro.
Dark wood cabinets, a muted yellow stove, bright orange countertops. It gave off a “grandma’s house” sort of energy that caused comfort and made conversation flow easily.
Brainstorms included purchasing land in Columbia Falls or, quite frankly, anywhere but where we were from. No Texas, no New Hampshire, no Colorado, and definitely no Indiana or Ohio.
We watched poor-quality videos around the kitchen table, that advertised job opportunities and housing in one of our many destination options.
“Would y’all learn to be a ranch hand?” Nick asked.
“I used to work with horses, I’d love to do it again,” I responded, placing my feet on the nook by the window.
“I had a horse when I was little; Murphy,” Ayla responded.
The remainder shrugged, and we all checked out the link to the applications. I had never had such a “go-with-the-flow” attitude until the prospect of travel came into the picture.
We all remained uncertain, but it was a comfort to come together and envision where we’d go next, even if it wasn’t completely realistic. Plus, it made us feel productive.
Nights like this ran late, typically following our night shifts. We ate chicken noodle soup or Domino’s, one of the only places open past midnight. Not a single place delivered to the West side, so someone would be designated to take the 20-minute trek.
Our “quote board” was born and extended through many of these evenings. Nick and I began to take down out-of-context sayings from our gatherings in the notes app on our phones, which we planned to read by the fire at the end of the season.
The more the person hearing the quote for the first time didn’t know, the better. Brooks’ infamous, “Do they tell you when you get a verbal warning?” remained supreme, and Nick’s “It doesn’t count as day drinking if there’s clouds,” were frequently referenced.
——-
While glancing around the West Glacier Cafe one evening, I observed employees with their backs against counters, fiddling with the sauces or dressings they’d already organized three times in the past hour and a singular customer flipping through a magazine, eating her burger at a sloth’s pace.
Our trio was on the barista side of the building with our front window open, letting in the summer evening air and handing out the occasional Americano to the staggering hiker high on a bear sighting.
“It was so close, I wanted to pet it!”
Because we were doing virtually nothing, we were ordered to close down our side and scrape out the ice cream cooler, a task we questioned as we were given little instruction and no tools.
After removing the 12 ice cream containers from the coolers and setting them on the counter behind us, the three of us comically stared at the naked cooler and laughed to ourselves.
Nick, clearly a man prepared for anything, whipped out three pocket knives.
“We can use these. Just don’t … stab the cooler,” he laughed.
With over exaggerated sighs, we put Nick’s knives to work and began to scrape the excessive, months-old frost off the sides. Employees came from the front to talk with us as we completed our odd task.
A hot topic of conversation had been the wildfires, as we were still bound to fire restrictions due to the severity of the weather. Mountains were disguised in smoke, the air was dry and our typical campfire routines had been canceled for months.
Our knives continued to barely make their way through the thick blocks when we noticed the breeze wafting through the window began to come to us with a different scent.
“Mags. Ayla. Is that what I think it is?” Nick asked.
Peeking out the window to assure we weren’t delusional, our suspicions were confirmed and our knives hit the metal counter. One by one we crawled out of the window to stand outside in awe.
The clouds were a darker shade of lavender as raindrops began to thump on the deck, and the bright red umbrellas over the outdoor tables finally served their true purpose. The downpour accelerated slowly. Thunder and lightning began to make their grand entrance, our new favorite song.
The air had been so dry, and it had been far too long since we’d seen rain, and we were elated.
Customers coming in and out laughed as we attempted to explain the reasoning. When word got out to the rest of the staff, we were soon taking turns soaking in the rare occasion, swapping out each other’s places inside so everyone could have a moment.
Most people were taking pictures like it was the first time they’d ever seen that type of weather. Social media was flooded with civilians disguised as meteorologists, reporting what we were all seeing.
Throughout the park, there was a collective positivity in the air among the gloomy visuals. Just like August, the rain was ending far too quickly. One month remained in our western paradise, and soon our cars would seem to be forcefully scooping us up and driving themselves out of the park, some straight home and others, like myself, to be stranded.
Nick, Ayla, and I, soaked, finished closing up shop in a comfortable, content silence, and wandered out to the parking lot, a muddy mess, where we parted ways for the evening.
Stay tuned for part 6.
