It’s starting to fade. I better hurry.

I am at a lecture hall somewhere in Virginia. I am not sure how I got there (I think I took a long walk), but I left the car for Edie. At the end of the lecture, I realized that I didn’t know how I was going to get home. It was now night time, and it seemed dangerous to do any length of walking. The lecture hall was down a rural road, quite remote from, say, public transportation.

A woman was walking out of the lecture hall, and I asked her if she was going into Washington. She told me she was and that she would be happy to give me a lift. I asked her where in Washington she was going; she wasn’t sure, she said, she was passing through and following her GPS’ directions. No problem, I could get home from anywhere once I was in the city.

We got to her car, an old fashioned station wagon, and I realized it wasn’t just her. She was part of a group, maybe a family. I got into the back seat with three others. Next to me was a young (maybe college age) blonde. In front, I remember a younger boy, about 12. The woman from the lecture hall was driving.

It is very quiet in the car. No one is saying much. I try to make small talk. Where do you live? Where are you going? The answer to the first question was: Wisconsin. The answer to the second: we are going northwest. Where northwest, I asked, trying to draw out more conversation. Wisconsin. That’s all I got.

We cross the Potomac. Washington seems busy and somewhat familiar – although something is off. I ask again how she is going through the city. The driver tells me Highway 3. I know of no highway 3 and tell her so. We keep driving, and things lose their familiarity. We are on a commercial street, driving through a very busy commercial neighborhood. Cars on the street, people on the sidewalks, every storefront is occupied, small stores, big stores, each with many signs, some neon lighted. I tell her I have never been in this neighborhood, and in fact I was very confused. I tried to read the street signs, but they weren’t clear. We may have been on Seton Avenue. Something like that.

I asked her to look for a Metro sign, but there were none. Finally, I said that I would get out and find my way home from here. No problem, she said, and stopped the car so I could get out.

A young couple approached me on the street, another college age looking woman and, presumably, her boyfriend. He seemed distracted and wandered (short distances) here and there. She asked me if I knew the people who had given us a ride. Us?, I asked. She said she got a ride with the same people but that, while I was in the car, she was in the truck that followed them. I hadn’t seen the truck.

She was also trying to get to Wisconsin. I am not sure why she got out of the truck. But I told her I was going home and that I was sure we had room for her and her boyfriend if they wanted to spend the night. She was glad and said they would. He was still wandering. I never did speak with him, I don’t think.

I didn’t really know what direction to go, but (from my memory of our route once we got to DC), I suggested we go to the left and look for something familiar. We went through one or two blocks of low apartments, and then got to what at first looked like a park, until we could see, down the green hill, a fairly broad river. We both knew at once that this was the Missouri River.

There was no bridge. but there were a series of logs crossing the river. And there were people walking and crawling on the logs (in both ways) to cross.

It was then I saw Edie and, I think, Michelle. They were on our side of the river, near the logs, and they began to walk across. I told the young woman I was with that that was my wife and my daughter. And then I said “They would never do this in real life. They only do this in a dream”.

We went down the hill (her boyfriend had now disappeared, I think) to the logs. She said: come on. I was skittish, but she convinced me it would be all right. We started across the logs (I may have crawled, rather than walked), and about a third of the way across the river, the logs began to sink into the water. Soon, we were swimming to the other shore. I had no concern about making it or not. The water temperature was perfect; there was virtually no current. At some point, I realized that if I put my feet down, I could feel the bottom and we could walk the rest of the way.

Edie and Michelle were waiting on the other side. Once the four of us were together, we started to go home.

That’s all I remember.