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I pull my wool cap down over my eyes. I’m shivering - it’s amazingly cold.

It’s late January and I’m cramped in the driver’s seat of my 9 year old Chevy Malibu trying to get a few hours of sleep in a deserted rest area just outside Sacramento. I’ve been in my car since 10 a.m. with only short breaks for gas and fast food. I’m exhausted, but I cannot bring myself to sleep.

That morning I had loaded up the entire belongings from my one bedroom apartment in the Seattle suburbs, turned in the apartment keys, and started driving. It was dumb and unplanned - a 2,600 mile trip in a car with a history of overheating is never a sound idea - particularly when I had no one to call if I broke down.

But here I was, at the end of day one, a good part of the way though California and things we’re looking up. The car was running well, I was getting decent gas milage, and I was driving though places I’d never been and seeing new parts of an amazing country.

Of course, none of that helped now. I could feel my lips being torn apart from the cold, my nose was alternating between dripping uncontrollably and closing up like a hair filled drain.

Sleep was not going to come easily. I should have gotten a room.