Adventures with Luna: Day 67 - North Western Nevada

Last night was the coldest yet, so cold that when I finally ventured out of my warm sleeping bag at 9:30, I found that our water was now ice. It was the first night that Luna spent a long period of time in my sleeping bag; I was sleeping badly and continuously woke up to cover her with her sleeping bag anytime she repositioned herself, finally, just bringing her in with me seemed easier and necessary with how cold her fur felt. With her in my sleeping bag and my arm wrapped around her, I finally got some sleep. My face was so cold that it woke me up at another point, once my head was in the sleeping bag as well I slept soundly. I did have a toque, sweatshirt, flannel PJs and thermal socks on along with being cocooned in one sleeping bag, having another draped over me as a duvet and my back on track quarter sheet over top, so I was warm enough if I stayed under the covers.

I have thought a lot recently about how powerful thoughts truly are. I have always been told such things as “whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you are right” and about the power of a thought, but I never really took it to heart, even though I knew I should. I feel like I am just beginning to grasp just how much thought patterns have impacted my life. One simple thing that I have found that really brings home the power of thought is having my head underneath the sleeping bag for warmth or darkness; if I cover my face at all with the sleeping bag when I am trying to get to sleep, I truly feel like I am suffocating, my throat clenches, I can’t get enough air in, I can’t handle it for more than a few seconds. If, however, I pull my sleeping bag over my head in my sleep or when I am half-asleep, I find it extremely cozy and comfortable. Even though I am well aware that I sleep with it over my head pretty much every night now, I still cannot handle having it over my head if I am trying to get to sleep, I truly experience the physical symptoms of getting too little air because of some errant thought passing through my mind. I find this fascinating, scary, awful and absolutely wonderful all at the same time. I have a lot of work to do to get my thoughts under control.

We left around 10:30 am and perhaps 5 miles in to our drive once we reached the main road, we arrived in Oregon. To my disappointment, the speed limit went from 70 miles/hour in Nevada, to 55 miles/hour as soon as we crossed the state line and remained on the exact same road. I watched as my fuel drained as we continued through the middle of nowhere. There had been several hours of driving the day before without any gas stations that were open and today there was about 1 1/2 hours until I finally reached one, it was quite a relief! The gas station was a Shell and was full service, which, posting this on my 72nd day, is what has been the case at all gas stations I have visited in this state. After getting my fuel, I parked and called my mom to tell her about the mustangs from the evening before, I had a great chat with both her and Sean.

I drove for around 6 hours, but it felt like much longer. We stopped at one point for Luna to play in the snow that was several feet high on the sides of the road. Luna was so ecstatic to have a reunion with her beloved snow, she was doing zoomies as soon as she was on it, putting her head down to grab mouthfuls of snow as she ran (yes, I had just offered her water, but she was being very stubborn about drinking it today). Perhaps an hour later we had stopped again to take photos of the difference as we were now surrounded by green - green grass, green leaves, green moss, green ferns and there were frequent small waterfalls at the side of the road. It had snowed and rained on and off throughout the day, I already missed the sun.

Arriving in Roseburg just after 5:00 pm, I scouted out their Motel 6. I was beginning to get in desperate need of a shower and was willing to splurge after sleeping free for 3 nights and knowing it would be a cold one tonight! “We got a room” I told Luna, almost trembling with joy and relief as I grinned from ear to ear, perhaps I was more desperate for a shower, a warm room and a reprieve from driving than I realized (the last couple hours to Roseburg had been long ones)! I was relieved to be able to cook supper, having spent the past few days in such windy, open areas that I had opted to snack instead and have apples, bananas and energy bars for supper. I am beginning to be so, so ready to be able to eat a variety of food and things much healthier than these meals that I toss in to some water and cook or heat up, I am beginning to feel quite unhealthy and not pleased with putting this crap in my body. The energy bars and fruit are of course healthy, but I have been eating way too many energy bars because when I eat breakfast, my fruit is fairly frozen, so very unappetizing, so I end up eating a couple energy bars instead, then I am driving and a bar is a lot easier to handle than a sticky apple that has to stay in my hand the entire time I am eating it. Ah well, there’s ways around these things I just haven’t prioritized it enough and my body is feeling it now.

My evening was spent showering, catching up online and just relaxing in the warmth, spread out on a bed. When I turned off my light, I scooted way up the bed and started to tuck my feet up, a habit now from sleeping in the car. My mattress has a built in pillow, which I had at the foot end for awhile until this evening, having placed it there with the hope that the dip in the floor would take up the bulk of it as I found my pillows way more comfy. Instead, it just made for quite a bit of discomfort, having my feet raised every night, however I didn’t get around to changing it as it is awkward, the built in pillow hurts my neck some and it scares Luna a lot when I move it, so I always found an excuse not to and regretted it every night. Finally, seeing as I had to move it around to blow more air in, I flipped it around this evening. Luna ran across it to come be right with me as she was so scared, I was touched that she climbed on to the thing she feared to reach me for comfort.