Road Rage

Driving out of lovely Seattle. We’re stocked up with good driving music, Rad Trads and all. Yet I have this masochistic compulsion to be ear-bashed by American conservative radio jocks.

What’s my problem?

I guess I just love being gobsmacked.

So, we’re hissing along the multi-lane highway in the grey rain amid towering trucks and shonky lane-weavers. Everyone’s going too fast for the wet conditions. It’s tense driving.

Even the landscape is glum. Just endless dreary commercial outlets, retail which seems to go on for ever.

So I add insult to the misery.

The local AM radio.

The radio ads are for KeepAndBearArms.com

Today’s redneck seems to be Lars Larsen. But they all sound the same. Gravel-voiced and angry.

“The little left-wing boy Jews are the most brainwashed crazy people,” crackles the wireless.

“President Obama is President Oblivious.

“You know he uses weirdos from Harvard. Their days are numbered.”

“Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump…”

“Hillary supports Jihadis…”

“The CIA is our enemy. They’re traitors. They have sold out to radical Islam. They are trying to shut up the conservatives…"

Didn’t I hear this all before?

Oh, that must have been the last time I turned the radio on.

More ads:

ABH, the clothing brand for Christian warriors.

The last word in fashionable survivalist outfits from KatieArmor.com.

Special deal on steel products for your church.

Sometimes America can be overwhelmingly extreme.

What a contrast is this ranting madness to the erudite and accomplished Americans I know, to the vivid theatre people, writers, craftspeople…

Change the station and it is more hate radio under another name.

They dare to call it news radio but the news reports are peremptory.

Gotta get back to the tirade.

Luckily, the sun has come out.

The landscape has opened up as broad valleys of small working farms with barns. Rugged cinder cone mountains line the horizon. The world is lush and green.

Heavens above, and there is a HOUSE ahead of us on the road.

Two sections of a new wooden home - cut right down the middle - on two huge trailers, with advance and rear cars with flashing lights. All of them going 70 mph, which is about 115kph - and driven by women.

I take snaps out the window.

There are signs to Skagit Valley. Lovely name, I don’t think.

It seems to consist of massive, and I mean massive, outlet malls and tucked in behind them rows of mini storage units.

Good mix.

One can overshop on outlet bargains and then stash the excess in a mini storage unit.

Another lovely name. Chuckanut.

It seems to specialise in RVs. There are breathtaking acres of caravans and mobile homes. And the biggest US flag I ever saw. The height of a two-storey house. Wow. Why?

Then, abruptly, the landscape returns to pretty farmland valleys girded by sumptuous green mountains.

It is all a bit aesthetically schizophrenic, really.

I turn on some music.