Yesterday I made two reservations on The Empire Builder Amtrak to bring my daughter Sarah and I to northern Montana in mid-January. This is a repeat trip that we enjoyed very much when my husband, Joel, was alive. We traveled to see his family and we boarded the Coast Starlight in Davis, and got off at the small prairie town of Shelby, Montana, just east of Glacier Park and Browning.
I wanted to duplicate that trip but I recalled that we had a two-hour wait at the Shelby station, which was warm and cozy and was showing the NFL championship games on television in the waiting room.
When the late train arrived, having traversed eastern Montana, the Dakotas and most of Minnesota, it looked like the Orient Express. The doors of our rail car had to be kicked open by Shelby train employees to break through the ice build-up. With wind blowing against our faces and legs, we stood outside the rail car entry and strong hands pulled us up into the car. We were shown to our stateroom, removed our frozen boots and placed our stockinged feet against the warmth of the wall heaters.
“You have a dinner reservation at 6 p.m. in the dining car,” our porter told us.
The memory of that Christmas trip lives with me twenty years later and I wanted to repeat it even though Joel wouldn’t be with us, with his innate knowledge of how to survive Montana cold, particularly how to avoid mistakes that may cost you your life.
I listened to all the information the Amtrak reservation fellow gave me over the phone. The trip sounded the same, as train track usually doesn’t veer off its designated path. We would board at Portland, Oregon, so that Sarah and I could visit the Oregon Kiffs before we visit the Montana Kiffs.
“You need to know that the Shelby station is no longer a working station.”
That sentence stopped me in my tracks both literally and figuratively.
I remembered in our 1998 trip that a bus that would take us from Shelby to Great Falls and the family could meet us there, a drive for them of about 90 miles.
I told Sarah that I had purchased the tickets. She was concerned that the Shelby station was no longer serviced. I assured her that I would contact the bus company and make sure we wouldn’t be left out in the cold.
Then, that night I lay awake for hours, conjuring up the possibilities that aligned themselves up like sheep jumping over the fence whom we are supposed to count when we have insomnia.
What if the bus can’t come through a blizzard?
What if the family can’t reach Great Falls?
What if the bus driver doesn’t know there are two passengers that got off the train at Shelby? (Probably nobody gets off at Shelby.)
What if, in a thirty below zero snowstorm, trying to find a Shelby house with a light in the window, and carrying our luggage, we turn in the wrong direction and head back to Portland?
Too many what-ifs made me cancel the train reservation the next morning.
A part of me is sad. I received two emails after I had cancelled and they were from my nephew’s wife on the ranch in Ringling and my niece from her ranch in White Sulphur Springs, both assuring me that they would pick us up and “do whatever needed to be done.”
Add to these my only remaining brother-in-law and his wife, who used to do all the driving to fetch their California relatives no matter where we landed. These three families are the reasons we travel to Montana as often as possible. Once there, we are taken into the warmth and safety of Norwegians, Swedes, Irish and Germans, who have the knowledge and stamina to survive ice and cold, and have been doing so for generations.
I am so grateful they are willing to “do whatever needs to be done” for their visitors from California and look forward to spending time with them in their Big Sky state either by car or airplane in a couple of weeks.
Renee Kiff weeds and writes at her family farm in Alexander Valley.
