We awoke Saturday morning at Swan Lake surrounded by the mountains, water and forests of northwest Montana. It would become one of those days when we saw some spectacular scenery, but by evening I realized that the most memorable parts weren't really about the places we visited.
They were about people, stories and connections.
Pancakes, Bacon and Stories
Our day began with breakfast with our wonderful hosts, Jean Erickson and her daughter Julie Erickson Lowe, along with Diana, Janice and me. We enjoyed pancakes and bacon while Jean shared stories about her childhood.
Jean grew up on a large farm and ranch in northeastern North Dakota. Her parents had come from Norway, which gave us an immediate connection through our shared Norwegian heritage, my grandparents on my father's side also came from Norway.
Jean grew up before her family had electricity or refrigeration. In winter, they harvested ice from a nearby lake and stored it in a sawdust-insulated icehouse to use throughout the year.
One winter when Jean was only about four years old, she went with her father and brother in a horse-drawn sleigh to harvest ice. Her father and brother were loading blocks when little Jean wandered over to the enormous hole they had cut in the lake.
And she fell in.
Her heavy winter clothes quickly became waterlogged. Fortunately, her father saw what happened and pulled her from the icy water.
What made the story even more tangible was that the old ice tongs her family used to haul those blocks are still here at the cabin, hanging on the wall more than eight decades later. Julie held them up for a photograph.
Suddenly they weren't just antique tools.
They were witnesses to a family's story.
George's Saddle
Later we went out to the shed because Julie wanted to take home another piece of family history—her father George's saddle.
I helped bring it down.
Calling it a "saddle" doesn't quite convey the experience of lifting the thing. It must weigh at least 50 pounds! It is a substantial working saddle from a life in which horses weren't decorations or hobbies but part of the family's everyday world.
George, Jean's husband and Julie's father, died in 2020 after living with Alzheimer's disease. That same year, Julie also lost her younger brother Erik. Listening to Jean and Julie talk about George made the saddle feel like much more than leather, wood and metal.
Julie also has the saddle Jean used as a girl. She plans to take both home to Oregon, where she and Chris will display them together.
We loved hearing Jean tell stories about Julie riding horses from an early age. We are so proud of Julie and her passion for nature and her connection to her Dad and Mom special part of who she is.
Before we put George's saddle away for the trip west, Tad and I posed beside it in Jean's living room.
Hungry Horse Dam
Later, Diana, Janice and I headed toward Hungry Horse Reservoir, not far from Glacier National Park.
Hungry Horse Dam is an extraordinary structure tucked into equally extraordinary country. Standing there, I found myself thinking about the sheer scale of what humans can build, and the landscapes and watersheds in which we build them.
We did a little sightseeing afterward, although anyone who knows me knows that crowded tourist attractions and shops designed primarily to separate tourists from their money aren't exactly my favorite form of recreation. There was, however, one important exception.
A huckleberry shake. Now that was worth stopping for!
Our next stop was Sacred Waters Brewing Company, where we met Janice's longtime friend Carol Jorgenson, who lives in Kalispell.
Carol is also a retired wildlife biologist and someone Janice greatly respects for her work protecting wildlife. They hadn't seen one another since Janice retired in 2019, so this was much more than a quick beer stop.
We ordered a flight, some French fries and nachos and settled in for a long-overdue visit.
Carol brought us gifts, and the conversation quickly became what these gatherings are really about, catching up on the years that have passed, hearing where life has taken someone and rediscovering a friendship that time and distance never quite erased.
Tad, meanwhile, joined us and appeared to believe that the primary purpose of a brewery patio was for people to admire an Irish Setter. He may have been right.
Back to Swan Lake
By the time we returned to Jean's cabin, Tad was ready for a swim. He and Freya headed into Swan Lake for a swim, splashing through water so clear that we could see the stones beneath their feet.
We sat on Jean's deck overlooking the lake. A boat passed. People paddled kayaks across the water. The mountains rose beyond the opposite shore. The afternoon light softened, and eventually great clouds above the mountains caught the colors of evening.
Nobody needed to be anywhere.
Nobody needed to buy anything.
We just sat together and talked.
Diana had thoughtfully picked up a jar of huckleberry jalapeño jelly for me during our travels that day. It was a particularly special little gift because she knew I would enjoy the combination of sweet huckleberries and a bit of jalapeño heat. I shared it with everyone as we sat together overlooking Swan Lake, and we all enjoyed another delicious taste of Montana.
Jean's Marvelous Dinner
Eventually we moved inside, where Jean prepared an extraordinary dinner from one of her handwritten recipes, a Portuguese-inspired dish combining pork, ham, chorizo, prosciutto and clams, along with onions, garlic, tomato, herbs and spices, served over pasta.
It was delicious!
But, once again, the food was only part of the experience.
Around the dinner table Jean began telling us about another chapter of her remarkable life.
Jean became involved with Friendship Force in its early years, around 1982. The organization brought ordinary people from different countries into one another's homes with the idea that personal relationships could help bridge cultural and political differences.
Through those experiences, Jean traveled the world, met people from many cultures and even had the opportunity to meet President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter.
Jean is vibrant, curious and engaged with the world. She has traveled extensively and written four books. Sitting at her table listening to her stories, it struck me that we weren't simply hearing about history.
We were sitting with someone who had lived a remarkable piece of it.
The Things We Carry
Saturday began with an old pair of ice tongs and a story about a four-year-old girl falling through the ice in rural Minnesota.
Then came George's saddle.
Later there was a dam, a huckleberry shake, an old friend, a flight of Montana beer, two happy dogs swimming in Swan Lake, an evening sky reflected across the water, a handwritten recipe and stories from around the world.
The ice tongs survived.
The saddle survived.
Jean's handwritten recipe survived.
But none of those objects really matters without the stories attached to them.
Perhaps that's one reason Janice and I wanted to make this Grand Adventure in the first place. We're traveling thousands of miles across the country, and I'm sure we'll see extraordinary mountains, rivers, forests and places along the way.
But increasingly I suspect that isn't what this journey is really about.
It's about the people we love, the stories we share, and the things we choose to carry forward.
Saturday at Swan Lake reminded me of that.
And as the light faded over the mountains and another day of our Grand Adventure came to an end, I felt enormously grateful simply to be there.
