Monday, November 13, 2006

Electric Car

One of my dearest friends, Monica, and her family were in San Francisco this weekend and I met up with them on Sunday.
They decided to rent these cute little electric cars to tour the city and despite a few snafu's, it was a total blast! It has a voice only gps, which turned out to be pretty unreliable. It wouldn't work most of the time so you had to rely on a regular paper map, which they give you because I'm sure they know the gps is completely unreliable. If a tourist was completely unfamiliar with the streets of San Francisco, they'd have a hard time navigating the paper map and the car at the same time. Plus, there was never any indication when the gps would stop working, so we'd cruise along a road for a mile or so then realize we were off course. That added to the fun of it, though.
We drove by Fort Mason, Crissy Field, Fort Point, Palace of Fine Arts, the Marina District, down Lombard Street, through North Beach, up to Coit Tower, through the Financial District, and Chinatown, down The Embarcadero then back to Fisherman's Wharf where we started.
We drove in regular traffic. The fastest it would go was about 25-30 mph, which was fine in the congested city. However, towards the end of the drive, our little buggy lost its umph. They told us to start heading back when our power gage got down to 60, but at 66, it was struggling! And we still had to get back 'home'. And 'home' meant
a.lot.of.those.infamous.SanFrancisco.hills.
Monica and I were in the back seat sticking our legs out pretending to push the little car, like how you'd do a skateboard, or how Fred Flinstone would. But at one point, Jaimie, her husband, our fantastic driver, actually had to get out and push it up the hill! EEK!! But we were laughing so freaking hard, it was totally hilarious. Monica's cousin and her godson were in the other car watching and keeping an eye on us because we didn't even have enough battery power to turn on the lights and it was already dark.
It was quite an adventure! But oh so much fun especially since we were able to take the bad situations and make fun of them. We saw a lot, nearly froze to death, but laughed all the way.

5 comments:

Ragged Around the Edges said...

Giggle. Giggle. I can only imagine you guys giggling and trying to push a dying electric car up a hill.

Ginnie Hart said...

This is so wonderfully hysterical, Mad. You'll never forget it!

paris parfait said...

That does sound like quite the adventure, trying to get the little car up those hills! Thanks for sharing this story.

Jodi said...

What a fun adventure!

Nan said...

What a great description. I could just picture it!

Sorry I didn't get the gourd to you before Halloween...we went on vacation and I let everything go.