After six days cooped up in a car and confined to sterile, lookalike hotel rooms on our 2,300 cross-country trip, Ace was unleashed yesterday on the wide open spaces of Montana.

It was a beautiful thing to watch. He thundered through a golden pasture, his paws kicking up dust as they thumped the ground audibly.

He jumped into Lolo Creek, which runs through our rental property, immediately ran back out, then decided he liked it and splashed around for another 30 minutes.

He briefly considered giving chase to a deer that ran from our back yard when we pulled in, stared down the three horses grazing there, and trotted along happily – sometimes at my side, sometimes venturing off on his own – as we hiked around under Montana’s big, but hazy, sky.

Forest fires have ravaged western Montana this summer, leaving a smoky haze hanging over the Missoula area. We ran into it 60 miles outside of town and have been inhaling it since. Fires are still burning nearby – though just how nearby I’m not sure.

My sister, having inherited my mother’s worry gene, is more concerned than me. She called twice -- first to tell me the fires were not far from where we are staying for our first month – out in the countryside in Lolo, about 10 miles outside Missoula. Then she called again to check on me.

It is the dominant smell in western Montana now, but the smoke doesn’t seem to bother Ace, who found plenty of other things to sniff out – animal droppings, dead wood along the creek bed and old gateposts that creaked in the wind.

It’s early yet, but, judging from the spirit he exuded on our walk, I think Ace – a stray that once roamed the streets of Baltimore -- is going to like being a country dog.

I think I am going to like it, too.

It’s only temporary. In a month we move into our house in Missoula proper, and our lifestyle will change again.

We’re home now, even though we’ve only been in this log house for a few hours. We’ll be home in town, as well. And, of course, we’ll be home when we’re back in Baltimore.

That’s because home isn’t just where the heart is.

Home is also where the dog is.