Grandma used to talk about Route 66, the Mother Road, with the kind of dreamy longing that made you sure she was there in the glory days riding Harleys with James Dean himself. The open air, the rebel spirit, the cheap motels spread far and wide. Americana in a two-lane highway.

I loved Grandma. The woman had lived harder than anyone I ever knew in college, and I knew some crazy bastiges. She was still living hard at 63 when she collapsed, gasping, in the kitchen floor of her mobile home, her old Elvis flask spilling out whiskey at her side.

I remember her final moments in the ICU . The hissing oxygen mask, the needles, the IVs pumping her arms full of morphine. I held her hand, that strong, calloused hand, for the first time cold and trembling in the twilight of mortality.

Route 66. The iconic road had not fared well over the years, its pavement cracked and broken like Grandma’s unforgettable varicose shell. It was nearly breakfast time, and with any luck I hoped I could find a decent latte in Albuquerque.