Last year while blasting through northwest Montana on the Yamaha, the landscape and tempo of living whispered that I needed to find time to come back and sit still in the middle of it all. Riding a motorcycle is a full‐time occupation, beginning with the need to account for the fact that everyone on the road is trying to kill a guy but including time to let the surroundings register even as they fly past. The desire to return lingered; much as a 1970s Billy Joel anthem might have done, I have spoken often since then of finding a place in the Bitterroot trees with a book and a good steak nearby, where never would be heard a discouraging word.

The occasion this month of time away from work provided the perfect opportunity to realize my objective, and I brought my google‐fu to bear on the question of whether the place I had been imagining for months exists.

It does.

Backed up onto the Coeur d’Alene Mountains, at the end of a gravel road, and fronted by a small lake¹ on its 400 acre grounds is the Amber Bear Inn.

We spent altogether satisfying time as the guests of Michael and Nancy Masten, the proprietors of the Inn. They are a couple of recovering software‐makers who have found a jewel‐like patch of ground and created a handsome establishment in its midst.

The Inn encloses a bright, airy space and is favorite‐blue‐jeans comfortable and cared for. We were made to feel welcome and at ease from the moment we arrived, with the overt intent that we should get every molecule out and let it relax and enjoy itself. There was a rhythm to the Inn I wanted to grok, a satisfying slap at the hi‐hat with some floor tom underneath it, the way an unfamiliar song sets a toe into motion because it clearly is going places, waiting for the bass line to resolve itself so the hips know which way to swing. We were Off the Beaten Path and it made me think of music. I was in.

Geese, peafowl, horses, a llama, and goats are given care in an adjacent barn — the peacocks have an astonishing call, and the goose living under the porch makes a racket every so often just to interrupt the quiet. I spotted a housecat peering out of the garage, but it was the dogs that were the best companions in the yard. Their behavior made manifest the idea that had drawn me back to Montana: a roll in the clover, followed by a nap, then a dip in the creek, after which it was time for a nap, and, if the day was not growing short, an inspection of the treeline to be concluded with a nap.

In the afternoon of an otherwise cloudless, warm day, I watched the birth and death of an exquisitely shaped small cumulous cloud over Pillick Ridge as I scratched one of the dogs’ ears. It was beautifully obvious how the air was rising in a column over the ridge until it cooled so the moisture it held condensed, as was the subsidence of the surrounding air as the moisture at the edges of the cloud evaporated. It was gone within 30 minutes of its initial moment. There was a fresh breeze, and it registered with me that the occasion was as serene as any spent reaching across Puget Sound on a sunny summer’s day. I could almost feel the tiller vibrating in my hand. This, I thought, is what I wanted to find here.

I am confident that if James Hilton were able to stand in the meadow and look about himself, he would agree the location exactly captures the idea of his imaginary mountain home.

It is near impossible to declare a favorite aspect of the place: our abundant room eavesdropping on the babbling Brewer’s Creek; the trees playing in the warm wind blowing from the west; the waterfall in a fern‐strewn cathedral of limbs; the delicious meals prepared in Nancy’s kitchen; the bald eagle sailing overhead; the deer and elk wandering the fields; the fact that Michael has his very own road grader; or snow‐capped Scotchman Peak that looms over it all? On balance, frankly, I will say our favorite part of our stay was Michael and Nancy; I think we were both pretty fond of them by the time we had to say farewell.