Staying in the car was the other option — waiting for another car to come by, or for the morning to bring visibility and the possibility of being noticed.

In rural Minnesota in 1980, in the dark and the cold, the likelihood of another car coming by on a back road at night was low.

The car, while it provided some shelter from the wind, was not insulated, and the temperature inside a stalled car in 22-below-zero weather would have dropped steadily as the engine heat dissipated.

Walking toward a known location — a place where help was available — was a reasonable choice given the information she had.

She had misjudged the distance, but the judgment to move rather than stay was not unreasonable.