We kept watching for the turnoff.

It’s 2:33 a.m. and I’ve come downstairs in the dark, awake, a dream still vivid in my mind. We were driving in New Mexico, as we did 10 years ago, in the most beautiful weather, made even more remarkable by the fact that we went on from New Mexico to Edmonton on our way home, where it was snowing and cold. In the dream I’ve just awoken from, we were wondering about where we’d stay, We’d come down from Taos through the Mora Valley, and our car was full. Our two grandsons, the ones we will see the week after next in Porto, were with us, as were two friends, one of whom is well beyond road trips now (depending on her mood when you talk to her on the phone, she is almost completely blind, using her white cane to negotiate buses, or else she is still driving, carefully, and never into bright sunlight because it affects her peripheral vision) and the other gone from our lives for shadowy reasons she never shared with us. So all of us in the car, a small car, but somehow there was room for everyone, even for the goose fabricated for a production of Chekhov, carried in a basket by the friend who has disappeared, the day bright and warm, and I said, Why don’t we stay in Las Vegas again? Why don’t we see if the Plaza has room?

In the dream, I then told our friends about the funny moment when we were planning to fly to New Mexico and John, looking at flight prices, wondered about a flight to Las Vegas and continuing on from there. He was looking at one Las Vegas but at that point, he didn’t know about the other, the small city with its wide generous streets, the Gallinas River separating the two parts of the city. I only knew about it because I am a fervent Ian Tyson fan.

On a high plateau out of Anton Chico
I see the dust of a herd movin’ through
The dream and the light softly fading
The horses will not stand
They wish to go with them
Riding for Alex Carone
On the road to Las Vegas

I knew about the legendary Singleton Ranches and the (equally legendary) horses, and Alex Carone, the general manager. We stayed in the Plaza Hotel that night, on our way from Taos to Albuquerque. It was dreamlike itself, our room overlooking a green square where young couples were walking arm in arm, and cars circled, young men hanging out of the windows, ogling the girls who were also perambulating the square, arm in arm, dark-eyed and beautiful. I leaned on our windowsill, watching, and then we walked the square ourselves, before enjoying a cold drink at the sidewalk cafe.

In the dream I’ve just awoken from, I told them about the hotel and the small city and we kept watching for the turnoff. We’d promised the little boys a walk around the remains of the ancient pueblo at Pecos next day but there was a night before that, and why not try for rooms in Las Vegas, why not, and I told them we’d had trout with almonds in the restaurant, we’d looked in stores filled with old boots and saddles,  and it felt like we could do it all again, in company: the trout, the walk around the square under wide branches, a chance to talk to our friends, one of whom gave us up for whatever reason, and tomorrow we’d climb down the ladder into the reconstructed kiva at Pecos, walk on the trail paved with pot sherds from the days of the pueblo more than 500 years ago. We’d walk, watch for rattlesnakes, the mesas purple in the distance, and a song soft as a dream. We’d talk, the friend we still see, the one we don’t. We kept watching for the turnoff. I’ve come downstairs, awake. So much has happened.

At the line of desire, seven strands of barbed wire
To hold back the onrushing tide
Many dreams have been brought to the border
Down in the canyons
Down in the culverts
The pray for safe passage tonight
On the trail to Albuquerque

Note: the song is “Road to Las Cruces“.