In the 1940s, Kathy Rains’ grandfather James V. Rains sometimes had to use a horse and buggy. Her father, James G. Rains, used a snow plane in the winter.

And for 30 years, Kathy Rains, now 49, drove trucks, starting with a 1979 Chevy and ending with a Dodge with an odometer topping 600,000 miles.

Rains was 19 years old when she started doing the mail run for Moose, Kelly, Moran and Yellowstone National Park. It was a job her grandfather and then her father held.

The family contracted the mail route from the United States Postal Service, picking up mail in Jackson in the morning and returning with collections from the outlying areas.

As a child, she often rode with her father, entertained by stops in Yellowstone National Park, feeding scraps of sandwiches to the bears that came up to the car. It was thrilling, an adventure.

At 19, Rains wasn’t old enough to have the contract transferred to her name, but her father was ready to retire. She took over driving and officially took over the contract once she was 21.

Rains wanted to keep the business in the family, but she didn’t see it as a career. She figured she would do it a few years. She lasted three decades.

She learned to love the hours alone with her dogs Lea, a cocker spaniel, and Olive, a springer spaniel, who rode with her each day. Books on tape helped the time pass while she was stuck in construction or behind hordes of tourists. She relished the independence of working for herself.

Six days a week she picked up the mail at 8 a.m. from the new post office in Jackson. She then drove to Kelly, Moose and Moran, through Grand Teton National Park and out the South Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. In the summer, the route takes a full eight hours.

In the winter, she drove only to Kelly, Moose and Moran but made the trip twice a day. There were times when the snowbanks were so high and the wind stirred thick falling snow so much that she couldn’t see the hood of her truck. She kept it at a crawl, often gently bumping snowbanks, which guided her back to the road.

She has racked up more  than 200,000 miles on every truck she has owned.

The one piece of advice her father gave her when she took over the route was to always keep the oil changed. He promised if she did that, her vehicles would run forever. Rains listened. Her Dodge has 622,000 miles on it and is still running fine.

Her retirement means the contract will leave the family, which bothers Rains, but she is keeping mail delivery in the family.

Even though she is retiring, Rains isn’t giving up driving. She has signed on as a relief driver for the post office to drive routes when others are sick or on vacation. It isn’t a full retirement, but she will have extra time, which she hopes to use for travel.

For years she has worked six days a week. She’d like to rent a houseboat on Lake Mead and see other parts of Wyoming.

She has seen enough of Grand Teton and Yellowstone that she finds driving through the park boring.