San Franciso

Joanne, Melrose and I went on a four-day road trip from Bakersfield to San Francisco, down to Alameda, back to San Francisco, down to Sacramento, then dropped by Yosemite before driving back to Bakersfield.

Since we opted for the most cost-effective (read: cheapest) car to rent, our adorable Kia Rio didn't have a lot of features to offer: no power windows, power locks, manual side mirror adjustment, and most importantly (at least for Joanne's sake) no cruise control! To avoid additional expense (aka over speeding fine), we designated Melrose as the cruise control while I served as the navigator.Yes, me as navigator. Unbelievable huh? But no sweat with the help of Vivi, the gps.

Took us a to get use to Vivi's recommendation. For example, driving down on the freeway from SF to Alameda, Vivi advised us to stay on the left. Joanne, the designated driver, complied by staying on the leftmost lane. Two seconds later Vivi commanded " Exit right". "Exit right, now"" WHAT?!? We were four lanes from the exit, this gps is crazy! So yes, we missed our exit. But thanks to Vivi, she recalculated our route and we arrived at our destination - more than half an hour later.