Hard manual shifting in 90 Legacy.

My car just made a big road trip from Denver, Colorado to Raleigh, North Carolina which was about 1800 miles. this last weekend we went to the beach and at one point it just did not want to shift into 2nd gear I could skip it and go into 3rd gear and all the other gears when I was driving to the beach. I checked fluid levels and everything was normal though the trans fluid was a little high and smelled a little funky. I drove back and one point going from a stop it did not want to get out of first gear.. it was like in neutral but i couldn't move it side to side and then I turned the car off moved the shifter around into neutral and worked it into the different gears. I then started the car in neutral went into first and drove without incident. just concerned about this issue. Thanks in advance guys!