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One of them asked a local, ‘How come the station isn’t closer to the village?’

And the local said, ‘Well, we thought it would be much handier if the station was closer to the railway line.’

That’s an old music-hall joke, but – believe it or not – life imitated comedy in Atlanta. The town began its existence as Newcastle in 1854 and was happily minding its own business until a year later, when the railway came to town. Or rather the railway didn’t come to town – for some reason, they laid the tracks more than a mile away from Newcastle. That worried the residents, who thought they’d miss out on all the passing trade, so they uprooted the whole town, lock, stock and barrel, and hoiked it up to the railway line. When they’d finished, they renamed it Atlanta. I find this an absolutely wonderful, inspiring story. It’s a very American, let’s-get-up-and-do-it kind of thing.

A lot of old Atlanta is no longer standing, but it still has its outstanding 36-foot-tall clock tower, which dates back to 1908 and is one of the few in America that continues to be wound by hand. I met a guy called Bill Thomas, the owner of a café called the Palm Grove. Like a lot of places on Route 66, the Palm Grove had crumbled after the interstate bypassed Atlanta, but Bill had brought it back to life, partly through his championship-winning pie-making skills. He’d promised me a piece of his award-winning pie, but first I had to wind up his wee clock. I’m not belittling the Atlanta clock when I call it wee. It’s just that I’ve wound up Big Ben, and when you’ve done that, every other clock in the world is wee.

Bill fixed a crank to the mechanism and let me at it. ‘How many cranks will it take?’ I asked.

‘About fifty-three total. And Billy, see what you’re doing? Right up here.’ He pointed to a weight on a wire. ‘That’s what you’re actually lifting.’

‘It’s exactly the same method as Big Ben, although it’s smaller scale.’

‘And see this? You want to stop.’ A white mark on the apparatus had reached a bar. ‘Stop. You’ve done it.’

‘Oh, glory be.’

Then, because I’d wound the mechanism correctly, he declared me an honorary ‘Keeper of the Clock’. I even got a certificate.

‘Lucky me!’ I said.

‘It might help with the police or in a bar or something.’

‘And you’ve spelled my name right and everything. Thank you very much. Now, to the pies.’

I’d really enjoyed it. And my new status as an official clock-winder of Atlanta has improved my CV no end. I’m sure I’ll pick up loads of work in that field as I wind my way through life from now on.

Bill’s café was a delight. He had worked very hard to make it look like it might have done in the 1930s. I had the last piece of peach pie. I nearly went for the apple, but I thought: Oh come on, be original. My super-duper favourite is key lime pie, especially from diners on the road. I also like coconut cream and banana cream, but Bill recommended the peach. As soon as I took a bite, I could appreciate why he’d won awards. It was delicious. The crew wolfed down blackberry, strawberry, apple and all sorts of other pies. A wonderful time was had by all.

Over the road from Bill’s café stood another Route 66 giant – exactly the same size as the Launching Pad’s spaceman, but this time holding a big hot dog in place of the rocket. In the time since I’d seen the Gemini Giant, I’d found out a bit more about these massive figurines. Most of them were made in the 1960s by International Fiberglass, a company based in Venice, California. The first, designed to hold an axe, was made for the Paul Bunyan Café on Route 66. Most similar statues along the road came from exactly the same mould, albeit without the axe, which explained why they all had their hands held out in front of them. The one with the huge hot dog had spent thirty-eight years outside a restaurant in Cicero, Illinois. Then, in 2003, someone from Atlanta spotted it for sale on eBay and cheekily asked the seller if he could have it for nothing.

‘Fine,’ said the seller.