The plan was simple: to point the car west and drive through the weeks of frigid, dreary February. The route would take me across from Washington DC through the middle-west United States as far as the Rockies and then down into Texas, where some interesting elections were under way, and through the southern states ahead of Ireland’s annual Come-All-Ye at the White House. The journey would cover about 4,000 miles and hopefully offer some kind of superficial survey of how America, through its voices and landscapes and bewildering scale and beauty and elusiveness, is coping with turning 250 years old....