Our Beast of Burden

Captain’s log – date: Tuesday 31 August.

You are thinking to yourselves „If the Hawkers are driving in the U.S, how are they doing this?” Let me put you out of your misery. We have hired a car. But then you knew that, didn’t you.


Here is our car. A nice white little number. Exactly what we need.

I have not quite worked out how to operate all the various automatic little gizmos. It took me some time to realise that pressing top button twice, the horn beeped twice. I can now open the boot, but the opening of the back-doors is done by pressing the middle button at random.

Filling up with petrol is a challenge. I am not sure how many gallons the car takes, but I think that it is about 20 – 25. I am not even sure whether the gallon is really a gallon or is it something different. You have to prepay, which is easy to get used to and in Oregon, the car is filled up for you by a pump attendant (I think that this is a matter of State Law, but implemented without a referendum)

Driving on the right is not too hard for us Swiss people. The speed limits change every few hundred yards, which is hard. I am still waiting for the sound of the police sirens behind me.

My observation on the West Coast is that drivers take their safety duties seriously. American pedestrians (at least in Oregon) are safe in knowledge that drivers must stop at the designated points. In fact, here in Newport, the pedestrians have right of way almost everywhere.

I have been pretty well prepared (so far) for most things that we have encountered. However, I have still staggered by the size of some of the RVs (Recreational Vehicles). These are the size of large coaches, and in many cases, even tow their own saloon cars, so that the owners can drive to the local supermarket, once they have pitched their .....um......coach.

We have been inspired for our next (as yet unplanned) journey by seeing an Austrian couple, who have just completed 11 months driving up from South America in their own Austrian Registered campervan. They plan to park the vehicle for a few months, and fly back to Austria to visit home, before resuming next summer. Now that is a brave way to organise a Global Tour.