Dear friends and family,

Back again! Alright, so the rest of the day that started with a literal house fire further devolved into a metaphorical dumpster fire.

After getting out of Whitefish, I finally was able to enter Glacier National Park using the campground reservations I had booked waaaaaay back in March for this part of the trip (it is VERY difficult to get a campground in Glacier, so this is one of the only two things in the trip that I booked far in advance, the other being Angel’s Landing). I made it about 9 miles into the park and did see some pretty beautiful lakes:

But driving on a simple, paved road 9 miles into the park, all of a sudden my car overheats and shuts down. I pulled over and popped the hood: no coolant whatsoever in the reservoir.

Shit.

Without any coolant, I could only drive the car at about 15 mph without the engine overheating. I spent about an hour babying the car back to the gas station at the park entrance, but found they had no coolant for sale there.

Shit.

My only option now was to baby the car all the way back to the next town, 40 miles away, on the side of US-2, a 70 mph highway with no shoulder in many places. Worse, the outside air temperature was climbing into the 90s, further reducing my max speed to 10 mph. It took me 5 hours to get the car back to the nearest town with an AutoZone. I rolled into the shop, killed the engine, and let it cool off. I bought a jug of coolant, dumped it in the reservoir, turned the car on, and:

Ah shit.

OH SHIT.

The car wouldn’t hold one drop of coolant, and it appeared to be leaking from multiple places. Now I had a real, serious problem on my hands. I managed to find a fire-safe hostel in town to stay in for the night, but couldn’t find an auto shop in town that would work on my car! “We’re booked till Labor Day” both shops said. Now my only option was to baby the car all the way back to Kalispell, another 30 miles, now at 8 mph due to the 95 degree weather and lack of shade on the road.

God what a miserable experience. I called 15 separate auto shops trying to find someone to work on my car, and every single one said something to the effect of “Booked for a month out,” “we don’t have the staff to pencil you in,” “sorry kid, locals only first.” Finally, on the 16th phone call, I finally found a shop that could work on the car, and that could give me a loaner car in the meantime:

Downsize Blues :/

It wasn’t much, but it did finally allow me to get to Glacier National Park while the car was being worked on. I had missed all my camping and say ticket reservations, but hey, at least I was in the park:

It was stormy and rainy, but I was in, and I was very grateful for that. The auto shop got back to me the next day and, miraculously, they had the replacement part on the shelf; they were able to turn my car around in just four days, and I was able to pick it back up the day after getting into Glacier for the first time.

All around, it was a difficult couple of days. Probably the most frustrating part, to me, was losing the Glacier reservations I’d set up way back in March. Glacier is notoriously difficult to get into, with each area of the park requiring a separate, limited, entry ticket, and no areas being open to the public in general. If only I had a close friend close at hand who could get me into the park on their reservation…

Well, I will have to save those details for the next update 😉

That’s all for now,

Stay well everyone,

Evan 💙