Last week I recounted my exciting travel adventure to get to San Jose, California to visit my son's family. I have often traveled alone for work and gone on trips with Hubby and friends, but I had never obtained a rental car myself. This was a new challenge for me that was easily mastered...well, almost.

There was no line at the Thrifty desk, although it was 1:30 am. The paperwork went quickly and I was soon on the seventh floor of the building with the ability to pick out my own rental car. What exciting choices! The red car seemed to be screaming "Pick me! Pick me!" I was soon in the driver's seat following the exit signs, having to stop at the booth for the attendant to check out the paperwork and send me on my way. I was no sooner on the road than another car started blinking its lights at me and pulled to my side to motion that the lights were not on. Mortified, I quickly pulled over to the side of the road and was aghast to notice other cars coming from the rental lot without their lights on, either. The attendant in the booth was remiss in his job if he saw the cars driving up to the booth without lights on and he didn't say anything. It could have turned out tragically.

Sitting by the side of the road came the challenge of finding out how to turn the lights on in this unfamiliar auto. I was pushing and pulling buttons and levers. The windshield washer came on, the trunk opened up, the heat came on, the cruise control lit up, and the gas tank door opened. But no lights came on! Forced to drag the owner's manual out of the glove box, page 78, in teeny tiny print, showed the light switch to be on the steering wheel column behind the windshield wiper switch. What? It was like playing "Where's Waldo" and the light switch was Waldo!

Finally, lights on, gas tank latched and trunk securely fastened back in place, off I went with the phone on GPS to find my son's home. Following the highway for only a mile, I was then directed to regular streets. The GPS directed me to turn left after 4 red lights, but this was really confusing for my older lady eyes. It seems that the multitude of streets lamps are all yellow...the same color as a yellow light. As the green lights turned yellow, confusion set in as all of the lights were yellow! Finally a few would change to red and I would try to count to four, but soon they'd be green and then yellow again. It was like being in a funhouse mirror with yellow lights to infinity. Fortunately, the GPS would count down the miles, to half miles, to quarter miles to feet, so it was those directions my red car followed.

My son had stayed awake until I arrived, and we had a rowdy conversation before settling down into bed. The weekend was great fun, going out to eat at the many different ethnic restaurants San Jose had to offer. I also took my sweet, intelligent granddaughter, Izzy, to the Science Museum, her favorite place to go. She showed me how to build a robot to do different things (sweep the floor, deliver a meal, walk a dog and so forth.) After that, she show me how to mix our DNA into a culture dish, warm it up, and then look at it through a microscope, identifying what parts of our DNA were alike. (She is only 5 years old!) Then there was our sentimental annual trip to Build a Bear where she designed a penguin wearing an astronaut uniform. (Last year we went to see the movie Trolls and she designed a troll, much to her mother's dismay because she frowns upon all things commercialized.)

The visit went by so quickly, and soon I was headed back to the airport, dodging the yellow streetlights and yellow and red stop lights again. All went well and I flew home as planned! I DID sit next to a gentleman who was headed to a conference in Rhode Island for the first time and he cordially asked if I had heard about Goat Island. “Oh, yes!” I replied, “You have to watch out for all the goats, they don’t keep them penned up!” He looked mortified as he was wearing a nice suit and polished shoes. “They even give you booties for your shoes to keep them clean!”