The train was on time for once.
It was a mad rush to get ready to leave. It had snowed overnight and my brother cleared the driveway of snow. At least he went to bed at a reasonable time and was awake to do this.My breakfast (oatmeal) was still cooking in the microwave as I hugged my mom goodbye and dashed out the door. My sleep, no food... a typical travel day.
My brother and I arrived at the train station with a minute to spare and was able to check my luggage. I had careful packed the suitcases and the two large ones weighed 47 and 48 lbs each - under the 50 lb weight limit. The little old lady who was the ticketing agent didn't believe me and weighed the luggage. Yup, I was telling the truth. Still she put "HEAVY" tags on all my suitcases, including the small one that weighed 40 lbs.Why were my suitcases so heavy? I was carrying bottles and bottles of wine Rod had made and given me. I also had a number of jars of my jam I had brought from Montana and had not eaten. Along with books and magazines, etc. Oh yeah, winter coats and boots are not light either.
Only a half dozen people boarded the train. This being the time when the fewest people travel by train there were plenty of good seats to choose from. I was able to get seats in my favorite location of the train car: far enough away from the doors at the end of the car, and away from the stairs that lead to the lower level and the restrooms. And the windows were perfectly located to my row of seats.
It was snowing heavily so my brother and I stood in the train car near the doors as we waited the 15 minutes until the train left. An older Oriental woman got off the train, went to the train station to buy a cup of coffee, then stood near the train car's door. Initially she commented on how cold it was, but after she sipped her coffee and listened to me explain how 30 F is not cold, she relented and said it wasn't that cold. She was traveling back to Redmond, Washington from Michigan where she formerly had lived. No, neither she or her husband work for Microsoft. That makes three couples I know who live in Redmond and do not work for Microsoft. In fact I don't know anyone from Redmond who works for Microsoft. Strange.
After the train left the station I went to the club car to look a copy for the Minot Daily newspaper. I seen the train car attendents had brought bundles of the newspaper on board. I borrowed a copy of the paper from two women in the lounge car. After reading the paper I chatted with them. They were from Grand Forks area and were traveling to Great Falls, Montana to help a good friend of theirs celebrate her 50th birthday. I used to attend the university in Grand Forks so we chatted about Grand Forks, the air base, and their travels when their husbands were active military. One woman teaches school in a small town outside of Grand Forks and last weekend the school's girls basketball team qualified for the Class C basketball tournament in Minot this weekend. This is a big thing for a small school in North Dakota.
Even though the women were from Grand Forks they complained about the boring scenery outside the train windows. They wanted to see mountains. It was snowing heavily and the view extended only a short ways beyond the train tracks. It seemed as if we were traveling through a white tunnel to nowhere. I thought it looked nice.
After chatting with the Grand Forks ladies I returned to my seat and alternately read magazines and worked on catching up on my sleep. Easy work though sometimes I fell asleep while reading!
Before I knew we were in Montana, then Wolf Point, then Glasgow, Malta, before a 20 minute stop in Havre. At Havre I got off the train and walked around to stretch my legs. The train was 12 cars long and I walked its entire length. The car I was riding in was in the exact middle of the train.
Later, before Shelby, Montana, I overhead an older black gentleman in the row behind me and across the aisle and the train conductor discuss Essex, Montana and whether it was possible for him to change his departure from Whitefish to Essex. Him: yes; his luggage: no.
He had questions about Essex and Whitefish and I fell into a discussion with him. I had seen him board the train in Minot shortly before it left. He had brought plenty of luggage with him on board the train. He had checked a few items, but as he had checked them after the train had arrived, they did not make it on board this train and would be sent the next day.
This gentleman - whose name I forgot as I am horrible with remembering names - works on a seismology crew searching for oil fields in North Dakota. They work 45 day straight - 7 days a week, then get 2 and 1/2 weeks off for vacation. He was using his weeks of vacation to travel to Whitefish and do some telemark skiing. Why Whitefish? On an early train trip he had strolled outside the train during the 20 minute layover in Whitefish and fell in love with the place and wanted to visit it again. He had no Internet and had not planned his vacation. He was taking the train here and would figure out where to stay and what to do once he got here. That I admire - going into a new place in the unknown in the belief the adventure would be interesting and fun.
We talked from Shelby all the way to Whitefish and the time passed quickly for the both of us. He had lived in the Minneapolis/St Paul since the early 1970s. We had Minnesota in common. He was an avid skier, both telemark and cross-country. He also was an avid bicyclist. He had never gone on any bicycling tours and he was interested in my travels when he learned I had done so many times.
I learned some about how seismology crews operate these days. My good friend Francis had worked on a crew in North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming in the early 1980s until the price of oil collapsed and the oil companies cut back on searching for more oil. The crew his man was on was owned by an oil company merged from Alberta, Canada and Dallas, Texas companies. Most of the workers were Mexican and Spanish was the main language.
This man was hired when the Mexicans could no longer take the North Dakota winter cold. Quite a number of them had got frostbite and quit. The company then decided to hire people from the northern U.S. and that is how this man was hired. He said it is an odd situation as he is black and sensitive to racial matters, but the environment where many people and most supervisors speak mainly Spanish and little broken English is challenging to him. He also mentioned the crew's eating habits of convience store junk food leaves a lot to be desired.
I suggested he first travel to Whitefish then after checking Whitefish out consider Essex. He had no car so Essex would be out of the way for him, and 2 and 1/2 weeks in Essex may be a bit long. Whitefish can be spendy to stay at during the skiing season and he was watching his money to make it last a little longer. He seemed to be a good and interesting man so I gave him the phone number of a good friend of my father's who has a few apartments for rent. I wasn't sure if she had a place available for him to rent, but never try, never know. I did tell him to wait till the next day to call as our arrival time of 9:20 pm (about 15 minutes late) was probably too late to call her to inquire on an apartment. I learned today that she did have a room and rented it to him so it appears everything had worked out for the best to all involved. It always feels good to help people.
When I arrived at the Whitefish train station my ride was not there. I waited a while in case Linda and Russell were late. The man I met and I were the only non-skiers getting off the train. The train's luggage cart arrived and the dozen or so people collected their luggage and left in the ski lodges' vans.
I went inside to call Linda. The phone was one where one makes the call and once the other person answers, you then deposit 35 cents. Nice idea as one may not want to talk to an answering machine. Once Linda answered and said "Hello" I put the money in the phone.
"Hello?" "Hello?" "Hello?" "Hello?!!" *click*
What happened? The phone took my money but wouldn't connect me. I asked the Amtrak ticket agent and learned I did everything right. There were two phones so I tried the other one.
The same thing happened.
What's going on?! The ticket agent lent me his cell phone and Russell answered this time. They thought they were getting telemarketers or crank calls and I quickly reassured them it was me having problems with the train station's phone.
"I thought you were arriving Wednesday?"
"Um.... yes. Here I am."
Opps. Linda had a busy day and hadn't been on the Internet all day and missed my email reminding her I was arriving today.
While I waited for Linda and Russell to arrive the man I met was searching for a hotel for the night. When he put money in the phone he was connected. Huh? Go figure!
He had a hotel prospect at $45 a night and the last I saw him he was leaving to walk over to check it out. He left his luggage that he had earlier carried on board the train in the station until he checked the hotel out. Once I left only the ticket agent was left in the building. I hope all his stuff was there when he returned.
During the drive to the ranch Russell and Linda filled me in on some of the recent going-ons in the Valley and with the county's growth policy.
I got home at 10:30 pm. A few inches of snow had fallen the previous day and we made fresh tracks to the house. The furnace was running and the house was "warm" at 55 F degrees. After unpacking a couple items I headed straight to bed and left most everything until the next day.
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