We just spent time with friends in the snow in Montana, and it was beneficent, a benediction.

We could enjoy winter from the safety and coziness of the house, savoring the sight of the fresh powdery landscape where just outside our kitchen window there were hundreds of healthy elk.

Or we could clamp YakTrax on our hiking shoes, grab our sticks, hike up our mountain road, and be eye-to-eye with the elk, with the falling snow, and our neighbors.

Or we could put our friend’s 18-month-old baby on skis, and on a sled, for the first time, and see how he enjoyed that. (Not so much.)

Our time in Montana was a beautiful, important, necessary escape from everyday life.