It was already getting dark when we left Zaragoza (pronounced thayr-a-go-tha), having stopped to see the Alijaferia Palace and stretch our legs before we continued on our drive from Barcelona west into Basque Country. Twilight seemed to turn prematurely to night as clouds poured in to darken the desert skies, giving us a dramatic lightning show before throwing large raindrops to the ground so forcefully that they bounced off the pavement and reappeared in the headlights of our car, traveling upward. As with the summer rainstorms in the deserts of my youth, the rain passed as quickly as it had come and soon a full moon began to play at peek-a-boo above us, the lone travelers on the wide tollway. It first glowed behind silver clouds, then snuck out through a side pocket, then hid again, only to rise at last into clear skies, where it shone a while. The silhouettes of mountains appeared as we reached the borders of the Kingdom of Navarra. In places, lighted medieval hilltop cities seemingly floated like ghosts in the night and we let ourselves believe we were in a fairy tale...it was almost impossible not to. Nighttime driving in the desert seems to engender adventurous thoughts, even if they are lost to memory the moment we reach civilization again.
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