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‘It’s rocketing, isn’t it?’

‘It plummeted last week.’

‘Did it? Last week?’

‘Do you know who George Soros is?’

‘Yes.’

‘He sold one of the largest hoards of silver, to my understanding, in the country. It crashed the market.’

‘Why would he do a thing like that?’

‘That goes back to why a lot of people don’t like this guy.’ Olen pointed at the ‘Obama Sucks’ bumper sticker. ‘They’re pals.’

I laughed. It was all I could do in the face of such unshakeable beliefs. The Nazi banner said more to me than I felt he would have liked it to say.

It always amazes me that, in the most religious corners of this country, you often find little dark patches. You’d think that people who like Jesus would be pulled to the left politically – they should be attracted to the sharing aspect of society. But they usually seem to be deeply suspicious of it, whether it’s socialist or Amish. Instead of cooperation and sharing, they want small government, small taxes and business to be left in charge of the country. They want business to tell the government what to do, not the other way round.

Ultimately, as far as I was concerned Olen was just a fat little fascist to me, so fuck him. He said he was a libertarian, but then they all say that. A lot of weird crap hides under the banners of nationalism and libertarianism. I’m not saying that nationalism is necessarily fascist – that would be ridiculous – but fascists like to hide in that independent-minded corner of things. And they do that corner a real disservice.

I moved along to some of the other stalls, which were reassuringly closer to what anyone would expect to find at a car-boot sale in Britain: people selling second-hand clothes, children’s pyjamas, unwanted exercise gadgets, CDs by obscure musicians, DVDs, badges, toys, tools and rusty garden equipment. Carol and Dave Archer, a charming retired couple who spent their time travelling in a huge motor home between their various children in Florida, Massachusetts and Kansas, were selling seashell wind chimes and funky tie-dyed T-shirts. It was a pleasure to meet that kind of American. They weren’t rich – they were just sauntering along, getting by. I had the time of my life chatting to them.

Mostly it was an absolute pleasure bumbling around the market, stopping to chat to people. But one guy caught me having a pee behind a tree and gave me a hard time. I wasn’t going to kill the tree – I’m a healthy guy – but he insisted: ‘There’s bathrooms over there.’ So I ambled over to two horrible portaloos. Have you ever looked in the hole in a portaloo? It’s like gazing into the depths of hell. I couldn’t help thinking that those portaloos were liable to do much more harm to the environment than me having a quick pee behind a tree.

Moving off again, riding on through the Oklahoma countryside, I caught a glimpse of the annual Cinco de Mayo celebrations. For reasons that nobody seems able to explain, this victory of the Mexicans over the French is a national holiday in America. Even more bizarrely, this year they were celebrating it on 7 May. I stopped for a chicken–pork pie. God, I loved it! I don’t get enough chances to eat chicken–pork pie.

About a hundred miles further down Route 66, as the road widened into four lanes, crossed two huge steel bridges over the Verdigris River and approached Tulsa, a blue whale hoved into view. Given that we were more than a thousand miles from either coast, that might sound strange, but this was no ordinary blue whale. For a start, it was made out of concrete. Smiling from its pond of water, it was the creation of a man who simply wanted to bring a little joy and happiness to his son and his son’s friends.

Hugh Davis was a zoologist who had travelled in Africa before settling with his wife Zelta in Catoosa, on the outskirts of Tulsa. There they opened a little zoo and reptile house beside a swimming hole on the roadside of Route 66. The local kids used to splash around quite happily in the swimming hole, but Hugh’s son,