Note - Kendall refers to the 'bitch in the box'. The GPS in California got this name following one particular incident.

We were coming back from a day sightseeing in the snow (in April in California!). We had set the GPS to take us back to Grass Valley and were tootling along the interstate when Kendall saw a road sign for Grass Valley and turned off the interstate. The GPS, which had a rather snooty English accent, immediately went into recalculating mode. I know it's only imagination, but we could almost hear the edge in her voice as she tried to correct the cardinal error Kendall had made by ignoring her directions.

Anyway, she told us to take a right turn and we did. That put us on a fairly narrow, snow covered side road. Seemed strange but we thought "She knows what she's doing". We kept on down this road, the snow got thicker and we were finally driving along the wheel ruts of a previous vehicle. As we went further on we could hear the snow scraping on the underside of the van we were in and were thanking our lucky stars that the compact that we had wanted had not been available.

We finally came to a place where the snow under the van was getting too deep. I was starting to get a little worried by this time but, knowing that Kendall was used to this sort of weather, trusted in his ability to keep going. Right about then we came to a closed gate across the road and a four wheel drive parked beside it. No sign of people, no lights (it was starting to get dark), nothing. The GPS was not talking to us. At this point we decided that it would be best to turn around and go back the way we came. Luckily, Kendall was able to turn the van around, I'm not sure that I would have wanted to try in those conditions, and we made our escape.

My theory was that the GPS got snitty about our ignoring her directions and decided to teach us a lesson. That's when she got the name, the Bitch in the Box.