The road less travelled.

I've blogged before about my loathing of car hire and car hire companies.  Unfortunately if you actually want to go anywhere when you arrive to your holiday destination, you will probably need to brave the car hire counter.  So it is with heavy heart that I booked us a hire car for our upcoming holiday to Portugal.  I decided to use a car hire consolidator (holiday autos type thing) where you type in all your details and make your booking - and your choice of company is pretty much in the lap of the Gods.  So I was not surprised that our booking confirmation showed that we'd booked with a local Portugese agency.  Fun awaits I'm sure.

The last time I booked a car with an independent (read: one man band) car hire business was in the lovely, leafy, and bucolic Warren in Mad River Valley, Vermont, USA.  We have some close family who live there - and a community of more eccentric, friendly and humbling people you could not hope to meet.  When there, and discovering ourselves in need of transportation, my husband's cousin recommended Hap's Garage as the local car hire place.

Putting our trust in their recommendation, off we trailed to choose our trusty vehicle.  Things did not bode well when we arrived at a forecourt full of rusted, half demolished vehicles, resembling some kind of primitive scrap yard. 

Once inside the 'office' we met Hap himself.  Dear reader, picture the scene if you will: Hap, in overalls and basball cap, stared at us suspiciously - what with us being 'straiingers' and all. His brother, whose name now escapes me, (though the image of man is still firmly embedded), looked bemused at the whole situation.  He was of indeterminate age, since he was concealed almost completely by unruly body hair which sprung from the most unlikely (as well as the likely) sources.  He was perched on a large oil can, devouring a sandwich, most of which was clinging on for dear life in his beard (more than a little like Mr Twit).  Above his head was a sign which read:

So engrossed was I in reading this sign that I almost missed spotting the large bright green caterpillar which was winding it's way through the man's chest hair towards his beard.  One can only assume it was in search of a free meal.

Hap showed us the car, and as if to demonstrate it's roadworthiness, he kicked it several times in different places.  Nothing fell off.  Hap beamed.  Don't worry about doing any damage, Hap advised.   'Scratches is ok' he muttered 'It's only the big dents that is more of a problem, you get my drift?'.  We nodded.  The car seemed ok, it started, it was pretty clean, nothing was hanging off.  We took it.  And you know what?  It was absolutely fine.  A caterpillar, a hairy man, a scrap yard and a slice of rural Americana - now you just don' t get that at Hertz.  Sometimes it's good to go the road less travelled.