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The further you get from Washington DC, the less it seems to matter.
Our holiday has brought us to a remote lake in rural Vermont, where I was surprised to see a stuffed bobcat in the local store. It looked like a large domestic cat, which at first made me think someone had loved their pet so much that, after it died, they had taken it to the taxidermist and put it on show for summer visitors. Then I noticed the bobbed tail.
Wildlife is big here, and most of the highway signs are warnings about moose and deer, which patently lack the skills to look left, right then left again. We scoffed at these until a doe ran across the road just behind us as we were driving at 120km/h.
That was somewhat exciting, but nothing compared with my daughter finding one bar of cellular signal on her phone in our supposedly communications-free zone. “Look! A bar,” she shrieked, as though she’d just seen a grizzly bear burst out of the trees.
Her friend Savannah, who is on holiday with us, ran over with her own phone to see if she, too, could witness this longed-for sight but, alas, it was illusory and had evaporated. They remain disconnected from Pinterest,
YouTube and, judging from their reaction, life itself.
The summer in Vermont is lovely. We have enjoyed a couple of days of 27°C, with little humidity. Winter, though, is an entirely different proposition. Swimming in the lake, we got talking to a local woman who told us it can be -30°C for weeks on end in winter. Another woman I met while out walking spends her summers here, not far from the Canadian border, and winters in tropical Florida. America is vast and, depending where you look, affluent.
We have so far driven around 2400km on this trip, starting in Washington DC and as far north as Quebec City in Canada. As soon as we crossed the Canadian border it was like being in France, with all the signs and instructions in French and no translation provided.
But the historical part of Quebec City is French in the best way – by which I mean lovely architecture, excellent pastries and locals who flick readily into English for people like me whose French extends to “un croissant, s’il vous plait”. Also, “Champagne? Oui”.
The city’s strategic location on the St Lawrence River gives it an interesting colonial history, as the French and British wrestled for control of the fort and thus dominance over the main route to the North American interior.
For us, the St Lawrence was crossed by a bridge on the highway, and our route was punctuated not by trading posts but by Dunkin’ Donuts. And to the relief of Savannah and my daughter, there was internet coverage almost the whole way.
From here, Washington DC and its politicians seem to belong to not just a different country, but another world.
Vermont is represented in the US Senate by the 2016 Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders. Depending on your point of view, he is either the man who cost Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton the election, because he divided Democrat supporters, or the man who is showing the Democrats the true path and galvanising a new generation of supporters.
“Bernie” is Vermont’s most famous contemporary export, perhaps with the exception of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Ben, Jerry and Bernie say Vermont like maple syrup says Canada.
From Vermont, the difficulty of governing the US is apparent – not because this state is different but because every state is different. The US is a collection of countries within a country, just as Quebec seems a completely different part of Canada.
It is extraordinary that the US remains united. The union is based partly on their love of the flag, the power of their shared belief in American exceptionalism and a healthy dose of self-interest, for now.
But nothing, not even a stuffed bobcat, lasts forever.
Most of the highway signs are about moose and deer, which lack the skills to look left, right and left again.