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So, I bet you think you know what a Chameleon is, but this is a chameleon like I haven’t seen before. A club where the 22 year old who rents a room in my house is singing tonight with a band named MERK. He is a very good singer and the band is great, for a heavy metal band. It is not my favorite genre, but I am one of those people who supports friends even when it means standing in a line in the rain on a side street in Lancaster. My life a series of BIG artventures!

     Now I have ME time.  Something I had never taken much of while raising five children.  While I am not finished, the time has gone by so fast.  I will never forget when my son was three and we had just moved to Colorado Springs.  We were having lunch in a park one day when Pierce said, “I want to be healthy and happy, not sick and sad!”  Profound words for such a young boy.  I am thankful that he is living out those words and working on living his dream of being a shoe designer and professional skateboarder.  I will miss finding the skateboard parks at every stop, but will have more time for art exploration.  Sante Fe will be my first night couch surfing by myself.  I am staying with a single mom with two kids.  I can certainly relate and imagine I may get homesick to see my children that stayed at home with their grandmother and stepfather.  By not going home sooner, I missed my youngest daughter becoming homecoming queen.  She said that she understood and it was OK with her if I didn’t get back, but everybody else gave me hell.  I don’t think most people understand what I have been through getting divorced after having five children, having cancer and now in the midst of a second divorce.  I have been discovering who I am since my cancer experience began and I am finally giving myself permission to be an artist again.  This trip has been symbolic of the freedom I am gaining.  And it is forcing all kinds of fears to fall away.

We were finally able to go to Sedona.  My friend’s sister said that we had to go through Jerome on the way, so we did.  The back country roads in the west are so much more spectacular than in the East, at least from my point of view since I have spent most of my life in the East.  It feels different.  There is a freedom and a question that continues to arise in my mind.  “Who says the earth is overcrowded?”  Nobody lives here! 

   We went up a winding road and our first stop in Jerome was a big old school that had been converted into artist studios.  The first studio we visited belonged to Robin Anderson and his wife Marguerite.  He was out painting somewhere and she was minding the studio which was 25,000 square feet of paintings, pottery, stained glass done by another artist and it was a great place to explore.  We could have stayed in Jerome the entire day!  When we were getting ready to leave, my friend offered the women a hug.  When the woman hugged her, she asked my friend if she knew anybody named so and so.  I don’t remember the name, but my friend knew someone with a name close to it and asked the woman if she was intuitive.  She answered “yes” and offered a reading.  My friend was very excited and encouraged by the woman’s words.  She held a ring of mine and also told me some interesting things.  It was different than the palm reader in Santa Monica who didn’t really tell me anything that I didn’t already know, but verified that I was headed in the right direction and encouraged me to be even more creative as if I needed that kind of encouragement.  She said things about the important book I had to write (not this one) and people’s names and a vision of my surroundings in the future.  It was quite interesting.  I will watch for signs, but more likely will know it when I see it, but wouldn’t expect to be able to find it if I looked for it.  

     The main area of Jerome had a number of galleries and shops and was nestled on a hillside  overlooking a beautifully colorful mountain range.  On the day we were there, I could have just sat on the hillside looking at it, preferably painting it, all day.  It was a magnificent scene the folks living there probably take for granted.   There was more we could have seen, but we had to get to Sedona.  We enjoyed yet another beautiful drive.

     If Colorado, Utah, the Grand Canyon, the Coastal Highway, Mesa, Apache Junction and Jerome weren’t magnificent enough, Sedona certainly was.  Approaching the red rock formations I had a feeling of being protected.  They promote areas they call vortexes, these are areas where there is supposed to be spiritual energy that flows through multiple dimensions .  When I passed through in the late 70’s, my parents said it was a one block town.  Now, it was highly developed and yet still looked natural, as in many areas of Arizona, the homes are designed to blend into the surroundings.  We stopped at the visitor’s center to find out where the vortexes were.  We didn’t think we had much time before sunset, so we picked the one that was said to be the strongest.  There was actually a chapel built there.     We stayed there taking pictures for at least an hour.  We drained all my camera batteries that day and ended the day taking pictures with my iphone.  It didn’t matter, I have gotten some great photos with my iphone.  There was an interesting effect that I didn’t remember seeing on any of my photos the rest of the trip.  We thought it may have had something to do with the energy there.  It may have, but after looking through my pictures again, I did see it on some other photos from Malibu, CA and Boulder, CO and I can attest to the great energy in those areas also.  I have to take some time to look at my file names to see if all the photos with that effect were taken on the iphone.  Maybe it was an angle of the sun that caused it.

     We had a great time seeing figures in the rocks and hanging out at the vortex watching the sunset.  I cannot say that I could feel the energy in an obvious way.  But, I did not want to leave.  I would like to go back again and spend an entire day hiking around each vortex.  The sunset was incredible.  The art in the area was incredibly unique as well.  One gallery owner told us that things were just beginning to pick up again after their perfect storm of road construction keeping Sedona less than easily accessible and the economy with high gas prices keeping people from traveling anywhere.  We left shortly after sunset to get back to a Halloween party.  This may very well have been my favorite day of the trip!

Hoodoos in Sedona

    I arrived on Tuesday and we spent Wed and Thurs touring local art attractions and on Friday we were going to go to Sedona.  Since it would be about a 2 hour drive, I decided to get some granola bars out from behind the passenger seat under some other stuff I collected on my journey.  The granola bars were in a clear plastic backpack and when I pulled out the bag it wasn ’t zipped.  I noticed a piece of snake skin in the bag and thought, “I don’t remember picking that up anywhere.”  I pulled another bag out to see if there were any different types of bars and it was filled with snake skins.  I am not the type of person to panic, so while my friend was already sitting in the front passenger seat, I walked around to the other side of the car and opened both doors.  She wondered what I was doing and when I didn’t answer right away she asked, “Should I get out of the car?”  I replied, “Yes,” not knowing if there might still be a snake in the car.  The night before I had left the sunroof open but didn’t think a snake could get out that way.    Of course, I have no idea how or when a snake got into my car to begin with.  Could a snake get into my car through an open door?  I may have left a door open when I was unloading the car.  Other than that, when I was traveling from California I stopped a lot to take pictures.  The scenery was beautiful and I stopped quite a lot.  I would pull off the side of the road and get out of the car, leaving the door open behind me, just to be sure I wouldn’t accidentally get locked out of the car.  I would leave it running, so I wouldn’t think that a snake could sneak into my car behind me or would even try with the car running?  I guess that I am just glad that I never saw a snake and somehow never reached back for the bag of bars while I was driving.  Can you imagine reaching behind you for a snack bar and ending up with a snake instead?  And, if I let my mind race, I could think of all kinds of scenarios that could have resulted in an accident or worse a trip to the hospital for a snake bite.  I have no idea what kind of snake was in my car.  The skin lined up on the ground measured over 4 feet and I keep remembering a time when I thought I heard something rattling and turned off the radio and the air conditioner to listen for a potential engine problem.  By this time, I was traveling alone and even though I have a cell phone, the last thing that I want to happen aside from an accident or snake bite is a break down!  So I turned everything off and listened and it stopped.  I assumed it was a car near me even though I wasn’t necessarily aware of a car near me at the time.  Could it have been a snake rattling in the back?

     Well, to be on the safe side, especially since my friend was completely freaking out and NOT going to get back into the car if a snake might be in there, we unloaded everything out of the car.  We took everything out of every box and every bag to be sure there wasn’t a snake hiding anywhere.  We looked in the trunk, under the hood, under the seats, and under the dashboard.  Once we were convinced the snake had moved on to its new home in Mesa, AZ, we packed up the car again and instead of heading to Sedona, since half the day was gone by now, we went to Scottsdale, which was much closer.

     When we were in Scottsdale, it seemed to me that I had been there before.  I had traveled West to Las Vegas with my parents when I was 16.  It had changed a lot in 30 years, no surprise.  I hadn’t seen so many galleries all in a row anywhere that I had been yet.  And bronze sculptures were something I hadn’t seen yet either.  The galleries had not only beautiful work, they had incredibly expensive artwork.  There were paintings there priced over $50,000!  We went into a gallery where the artist who created the work on the walls was manning the gallery and I asked, “What would you recommend to someone who wanted to be a famous artist?”  His reply was, “Kill yourself!”  I have been accused of being blonde under my haircolor which covers my gray hair and this was one of those moments.  I replied, “Why?  You don’t want any competition?”  I expect I’ll never run into that artist again outside Scottsdale and if I run into him again and continue to play “dumb” he won’t know the difference.

     Other conversations with gallery owners indicated that the economy was definitely hurting business there.  While there were many galleries, there were also a lot of empty spaces.  Arizona was one of those states with the highest foreclosure rates.  Because my friend’s sister was in real estate there, I found out that many people were letting foreclosures happen just as an investment strategy.  Why continue to pay the mortgage on a million dollar home which is now worth half a million, when you can now get a two million dollar home for a million dollars? 

     We had an especially unusual experience on the way home, too.  Or, I was continuing to be blonde that day.  The moon looked quite unusual in the sky, like a bright orange ball.  I have seen a bright orange moon before, usually lower in the sky.  But, as we got closer, it seemed to have a white light at the bottom.  One thing about Arizona, the Pheonix area that is, it seems that they planned it from nothing in the desert, so this large area has a perfect grid of streets.  It makes it very easy to get around without losing your sense of direction.  You can follow the same road for miles.  That is my explanation for what I am about to reveal.  As we got closer and closer to the moon, which you also don’t usually do in a car, it looked more and more unusual.  Turned out, it wasn’t the moon at all, but a large balloon floating over some store to promote some special sale.

     We obviously had a very long day, snake or no snake and all.  It is getting closer to the time I will had to begin home again and I am NOT looking forward to it.  Maybe I can get my oldest daughter to come here to go to college.  Maybe I can convince my parents that this weather would improve my father’s health.  Maybe I’ll move here and drag them all with me.  It’s a good time to buy real estate here.  It is only six hours from my son in Los Angeles.

The drive from Los Angeles, CA to Mesa, Arizona was one that prompted many stops for photos.  That’s when I began to think again of the magazine I had seen years ago.  It was a little scary when I stopped at rest stops.  They had signs that said, “Poisonous snakes and insects in this area.  They had a special area for people to take their dogs.  I don’t know what made that certain area safe for dogs and the rest of the area not safe.  I made lots of stops along the road and jumped out of my car to take pictures leaving my car running and my door hanging open and never saw any snakes or insects.

I stayed with a friend in Mesa and we went into downtown Mesa, Tempe, Scottsdale, Jerome and Sedona.  It was interesting to see how each area was different.  Arizona is one of the states with the highest foreclosure rates, so the arts were definitely affected there, but it wasn’t all grim.  While there weren’t too many galleries in Mesa, there was a fantastic Arts Center which had well attended classes and events.  IN Tempe’s Center for the Arts, they also have a very nice store and a selection of classes available.  They weren’t too far away from each other, there is a much larger population in these areas than you realize just driving around.

I heard that Phoenix has a very nice 1^st Friday also.  I could attend a different 1^st Friday in almost every state.  There’s a goal! 

If you look at a map and you are from an area like I am from, you cannot picture the way that Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa blend together.  Even Scottsdale is part of that blending at this point.  I am sure there was a time when they were more separated, but today it is one big interconnected area.  The sights and shops are endless.  Even when you get to the outer edges, like Apache Junction, the views just get better.

And as far as Apache Junction goes, I highly recommend a little place called The Hitching Post.  We enjoyed a few evenings there.  I danced with a real Apache Indian in Apache Junction.  Actually, I stepped on his toes because I don’t know the 2 step.  It is something anybody traveling in the West should know!  I guess I’ll have to learn for next time.  They also made the news because they put a big chicken on their roof without a permit, but they were good sports about it and quite a friendly gang!

I stayed with her 2 nights and it was very nice to connect after not seeing each other for so long.  I look forward to spending more time with her in the future. 

The day I left was the day that I spent in heaven and I have a picture to prove it!

I drove the Pacific Coastal Highway back to Los Angeles from Santa Cruz.  It was absolutely beautiful.  This trip was full of breathtaking scenery!  I thought that Colorado, Utah and Arizona had so much of it, but I definitely vote the Coastal Highway as my favorite drive of the entire trip!  I stopped frequently, like every 100 feet, to take pictures.  That might be a slight exaggeration, but not a huge one.  There was a thick fog that day.  Even at 2:00 in the afternoon. 

I am never up early enough back east to get pictures of fog.  The entire day had a covering of fog.  There were only a few spots that I was able to see the ocean that day and the only reason I was glad I didn’t know how high above the ocean that I really was is because of how nauseous I got looking down into the Grand Canyon.  I never had that experience with heights before.  I won’t admit that it could be age.

If I wasn’t driving alone, I would have pulled over at sunset and slept under the stars and drove again in the morning.  But, I had to be concerned about safety since everybody else was worried about me.  I hated having to miss scenic views driving in the dark.  I am looking forward to doing this again!

My son’s apartment is in an exciting part of town.  Surrounded by the Fashion District, Gallery District and Jewelry District and within any 2 blocks on any given day, you could find film crews.  I didn’t see any movie stars, but I did meet an actress that I am sure that I have seen on 24 since my husband was addicted to it a couple seasons.  She was running a gallery on the first floor of my son’s apartment building.  I am looking forward to building on the relationships that I started there and plan to be there frequently over the next 3 years or so while my son is in school there.  And while many would say, “fly!”, I enjoyed the drive sooo much, I MUST do it again.

His roommates are an Asian Fashion Designer and an Indian woman who already has a Masters Degree in Marketing and was taking courses to specialize in Fashion Merchandising.  It was so interesting meeting them and learning new things from them about how to market my jewelry, I am putting them into practice right away.

Since my life in PA pretty much fell apart or , from a more positive perspective, became open to a complete redesign, I wasn’t in any hurry to return to PA.  I had a couple goals for my stay in LA:  move my son and be sure he is settled in; make contacts to further art and jewelry marketing for myself and the Collective artists; and see my cousin that I haven’t seen in about 23 years.  I accomplished these.  I would have loved to paint on Venice Beach for a week and the last week I was there when I was going to do it, it rained every day – 8 days in a row.  It was a huge disappointment and my only resolve is that I may not have come back at all if I had enjoyed it too much!

I cannot say that I liked it so much that I would want to live there, but I am looking forward to seeing more of California.  Actually, when I explored Malibu one day, I definitely wanted to live there and I could, if I buy an RV and live in it.  Then, somebody clued me in that you can house sit there while people that live there trot the globe.  But, with 2 young boys, I am not sure that would be a good idea.  Maybe in several years, when they are all out of the nest, I can be a full time gypsy.

I had planned to be in Los Angeles at least until my son’s 19^th birthday.  That worked out nicely since they have a gallery walk on the 2^nd Thursday each month which draws 20,000-30,000 people into the city.  I had the opportunity to meet the man who started the event.  I would say that I know that change is a hard thing.  When he started it, not a lot of people lived in the city.  People worked in the city and left the city to go home, so an evening of galleries staying open after work made sense to him.  As people moved into the city and could frequent the galleries during the day and on weekends, another group got involved to make the gallery walk a bigger event and get the bars and other businesses involved.  I even saw a dry cleaner/gallery.  As an outsider, I think it’s great!  He closed his gallery early.

Now, it was interesting to think about other people’s perspectives.  I was told that Los Angeles was one big suburbia after suburbia.  I certainly didn’t see it that way.  But, people who have lived in big cities surely see things differently.  I have lived in the same small town for most of my life, which is way too long!  I lived in Pittsburgh for 2 years while I attended art school and I wouldn’t call either of the other 2 places that I lived for about a year each, a big city, even though Colorado Springs has a pretty large population.  I would call that one big suburbia.  At least 15 years ago, I would havce called it that.  I have heard it has changed.  It seems odd to me since my little town doesn’t change.  Did I say that I have lived there too long?

There are 2 Los Angeleses.  The City and the County.  I think that is where the confusion comes in.  On the drive to Venice Beach, we passed another city.  It was Santa Monica.  I was told that Santa Monica was a part of Los Angeles.  While it may be in the same county and even somewhat connected, it was definitely a different city.  It had a very different feel, much cleaner.  It expanded to the beach, which was quite beautiful!  There were the most unusual trees that I have seen on a cliff overlooking the beach and pier.  I had my palms read there.  Quite interesting, but nothing earth shattering to report.  If they gave me any guidance it was to be creative in more ways than I have been before!  Like, I needed that encouragement.  I can’t help myself and I certainly can’t stop.  People around me think that I should be much more responsible.  I am definitely to the point where I have to figure out how to make a living being creative or die trying.  I know that I will succeed, it is already happening.  The best part is that as I become more successful making a living being creative, I will be able to help others to do the same.

Well, after the gallery walk and the birthday, Pierce’s fashion designer roommate was going to be involved with a fashion show.  He asked me to stay, so I couldn’t refuse.  The fashion show was part of a T shirt design competition and he was announced as the winner that evening.  There was a lot of excitement in the apartment for the couple weeks leading up to the event, so it was quite fun.  Way too much fun!!  I cannot tell you how hard it was to leave. 

I found out that a friend of mine from back east was coming out to Pasadena on business the following Monday, so that gave me one more excuse to stay a couple more days.  I may have been able to come up with more.  The roommates thought I should stay for Halloween, but that would have led to Thanksgiving, then Christmas and I could be living and working out there by now.  Do you ever feel like you made the wrong decision?  I may be home now, but I will be going back and it will be another long trip.  I may take a slightly different route for the next Artventure or I may just expand on this one.  There are definitely a few stops that I wanted to make but just didn’t have time for.  And some of the stops I did make will require more time next trip.

While some people think that LA is a dangerous place, like every big city.  The scariest experience I had in Los Angeles was when I went to the parking garage where I parked the whole time and my car (actually, my husband’s car – the one who decided he wanted a divorce just before I was leaving on the trip, but was nice enough to still let me use his car that gets 44 mi per gallon) was NOT in its parking spot.  I just about had a heart attack fearing that it had been stolen.  Turned out, I parked on the wrong level.  I hadn’t even been drinking the night before.  And, thankfully the person whose spot I parked in, must have gone away for the weekend, so I didn’t get towed out of it!

We arrived first in Las Vegas to the home of a man around 30 years old.  He lived in a gated community and his sofas were comfy.  He had just picked up another guest at the airport who was from Venezuela.  He brought out a cot for her to sleep on.  We heard there were 2 more guests from Germany arriving later and decided to take a nap before too much excitement began.  But, does this sound like Vegas outta be!

Our host and his other guests went off to the bar that was serving free Vodka drinks from 6-9pm, then off to the strip club that was serving free Sushi 9pm to midnight.  I might have experienced my first strip club for free Sushi!  But, I would not have left my son alone to fend for himself even though we felt very safe couchsurfing, despite all of our family and friends’ concerns.

It was definitely new and different, but I am looking forward to not only surfing again, but opening my home to couchsurfers.  We spent 2 nights in Vegas just to recover from all the driving to the Grand Canyon.  I didn’t have any interest in gambling, just art.  Vegas is much larger than when I had been there 30 years ago.  No surprise except when you come from an area that hasn’t changed much most of your life, it is an eye-opener.

So, our full day in Vegas was spent looking for skateboard parks.  They had more options than Pierce was able to skate in one day, but he did get to try out 2 of them.  I ran him to a skate park, went to find the galleries (really just one small section is all I had time to visit), had lunch at a Mexican restaurant, picked up lunch for him and took him to a second skate park and went back to the gallery area for their preview night.  The night before their popular Friday night event when everyone would be open and the galleries would be overflowing with people.  They were happy to get over 5000 people to their Friday night event and enjoyed themselves even though I was told that the art economy in Vegas wasn’t so great.  I was surprised since it was a vacation destination.  But, alas, people don’t go to Vegas for the art.  At least not the fine art.

One artist that I spoke to was also a graphic designer and that helped him to keep up with his bills.  He was lucky, many graphic designers working for casinos in Vegas have been laid off.  Another traveled the Midwest art show circuit and did very well.  I was surprised to hear about this since the artists back east who were going to shows in the east had lots of complaints of the shows not being well attended and sales weren’t good. 

Now, keep in mind that I didn’t spend a lot of time in any one place during this trip, so if you have a different perspective, I am happy to hear your comments, because I don’t feel that my observations are in any way complete.  But, I don’t think I’d move to Vegas to live and work out of the same location as an artist.  That is the goal I am looking for a place to fulfill.  Maybe I have my head in the clouds.  I did here in Vegas!  I liked the clouds here!

I kept feeling confused about the whole, “It’s on the way” thing people kept saying.  When I looked on the map, I was expecting to see a road that ran along the Canyon to Las Vegas because it was “on the way”.  I didn’t see that road on the map, but you know electronic maps don’t have everything on them! 

It was going to be about a 12 hour drive to the Grand Canyon.  We were planning a stop in Nederland, CO so Pierce could skate on a park that was designed by Tony Hawk.  This little town in the middle of the CO Rockies won a grant for this park.  It was on the way, so we’d do it.  This trip was for Pierce first, everything else took 2^nd to him skating on as many skate parks as he could on our way to Los Angeles.  In Los Angeles, he is going to school with the goal of designing skate shoes and becoming a pro skateboarder.  I encourage him in his own dreams and pursue mine along the way.  This is the first time in my life that I have given myself permission to do it.

I cannot tell you how long we drove that day.  I think we left Boulder by 10am and we stopped for gas and food and to stretch along the way.  And, most importantly, take pictures.  The scenery was absolutely stunning!

I even took a lot of pictures right from the car because I didn’t have time to stop.  Colorado was beautiful and what I saw of Utah was beautiful.  I don’t like driving in the dark just because I know I am missing some beautiful landscape.

When we finally got off the main highway and were on what should have been the last stretch to the Grand Canyon, we came upon an accident.  A truck had overturned and this was on a road that was one lane each direction.  It hadn’t happened too long before we arrived and the emergency workers told us that it would be at least an hour before the accident was off the road and we could get by.  It was late enough that we could have slept a little while in the car right there,  but we were still raring to go and we could go around a mountain on the highway and take another way.  This would add a couple hours, but we thought it was better than sitting still.

As we got back onto the highway, there were signs saying, “thick smoke may cover roadway” and we weren’t sure what that was about at first.  Then, there were signs that there was a forest fire and not to call to report it.  We could smell it, like a campfire nearby.  Then we began to see clouds overhead that were glowing red.  As we rounded the mountain, we could see it.  I have never seen anything like it up close.  What I have seen on TV that looked like what I was seeing for the first time in person was a volcano erupting, without lava flowing down into the road.  The mountain glowed red like lava with black patches between the red flames.  We couldn’t tell how high the flames were since there was a cloud of smoke sitting above the mountain reflecting the red flames.  Even the full moon seemed to be hovering above the fire and it also reflected the red from the flames.  The smell lasted almost as far as we drove that night.  We drove and drove and finally stopped along the road to nap.  Later, we drove more and I couldn’t go any farther when we were in the desert. 

We pulled over around 2am and slept til 6am, when the first car came by.  It was the first sunrise I have been awake for in a very long time.  Now I have sunrise pictures as well as sunset pictures!  It was beautiful!  And a beautiful drive in to the Grand Canyon.  Yet, there were quite a few scenes we weren’t expecting.

What we were expecting was a drive through a desert to a big hole in the ground,  more or less.  We went through the desert, then, we entered a forest.  It wasn’t all that different from a forest in Pennsylvania or Colorado.  There were lots of Aspen trees turning golden.  Then we began to see signs.  They had pictures of cows on them like it was a marked cow crossing.  We didn’t know and still don’t know why there are cows in the forest at the Grand Canyon National Park.  In case you haven’t seen what we have seen, we were on the much less visited North Rim.  We actually did see cows at some point in time.  And we saw a bull!  But, the most unusual cow we saw was a dead cow along the side of the road.  Its legs were straight up in the air with birds on them.  What an amazing sight!  More amazing than the purple cow I saw at the Farm Show when I was a kid.

As we drove up hill, we could catch glimpses from time to time of the Canyon.  When we finally arrived at a parking lot which seemed to be as far as we could drive, we had no idea how far from the Canyon we were.  We heard we had to hike the rest of the way.  Fortunately, the rest of the way wasn’t too far.  But the trees went all the way to the edge.  There was a trail around the edge and a couple places where you could walk out onto rocks and look over the edge.  It was so very obvious that if you slipped off the trail and weren’t able to catch your fall, it was a long way down.  The trails weren’t lined with railings.

We were exhausted and Pierce did the Chevy Chase thing from his Vacation movie.  Looked over the edge and said, “Ok, let’s go!”  Well, I had too many pictures to take.  We stopped at 2 of the three major overlooks and some smaller ones on the way and spent about 4 hours there, then left for Vegas.  There was no road “on the way”.  We had to travel 2 hours out on the same road that we came in on, then around to Vegas.  It was only 6 hours and I can’t regret seeing the Grand Canyon.  I am just oh so very happy that I didn’t have to sleep in my car more than 1 night!