A small parade of fuel cell vehicles circled around Corvallis on Saturday afternoon as part of the 2009 Hydrogen Road Tour.

The tour, which started May 26 south of San Diego and will end June 3 in Vancouver, British Columbia, aims to promote fuel cell technology while giving people a chance to test drive the vehicles and talk to engineers.

A mobile fueler made the trip to keep the 12 vehicles from seven different car makers going.

Dawn McKenzie, assistant manager of product communications for GM, said the vehicles are ready; the challenge that remains is creating the infrastructure.

"What we need now are the stations where we can refuel these vehicles," she said.

There are about 25 stations around the Los Angeles area but none - yet - in Oregon.

At least two people who tried the cars Saturday gave glowing reviews.

"It was awesome," said Mehgan McMorries, who drove a Toyota Highlander. "It was really quiet. It wasn't really different from driving any other car."

McMorries, 22, is an environmental studies major at Oregon State University. For a class project on alternative energy, she's part of a group doing a report on hydrogen, so Saturday's event was a good chance to do first-hand research.

"It's cool to think it's just water coming out the back end," she said.

With McMorries was Adam Christensen, 26, a graduate student at OSU.

"This technology's been around for a while and people have been intrigued by it, but never really had a chance to look at it," he said.