Let’s get one thing straight. The American people care about your comfort. That is an incontrovertible fact. So does Uncle Sam, and so does every individual state government. And the Forest Service, and the National Parks Service, and whoever administers the State Parks, State Recreation Areas, Wildlife Reserves, Wilderness Areas, State Historical Sites, Game Reserves, National Monuments, Historic Grasslands and all those other places that dot the map and invite the curious traveller to investigate. Whether you’re hurtling along freeways or sitting on a folded canvas chair waiting for Canada geese to pass overhead on their northward migration, you can bet that there’ll be a place to park and a place to answer that call of nature. So long as what you’re on is actually designated a Rest Area, or a wildlife observation area, or even a plain old picnic site. Given that official sanction, there will be a parking-spot, and a toilet with a drinking fountain and an automated hand-dryer. There’ll also be a table-and-bench set, and a barbecue pit or stand. And what can be more fun than brewing up your coffee over an open fire as you prepare lunch? Granted, not a lot of people take advantage of the opportunity to do so by the side of Interstates. But I do, frequently. It saves me having to work up another rage against the pathetically thin brew they serve in the average diner out west.

However. Try finding a place to pull off the road and relieve yourself where there isn’t a State Park, State Game Reserve or any of the multitude of facilities listed above. No, let me save you the trouble. Don’t try it. I’m not saying it’s impossible, just that it’s not as easy as you’d like it to be. Worse than that, it can soon land you in trouble. I have from time to time driven thirty or forty miles with a bursting bladder and still, finally, had to relieve myself in the scant shade of an open car door, scanning the horizon for approaching vehicles.

Take my word for it, out in the Great American Desert, as the early explorers called these lands between the Missouri and the Rockies, you may drive five, ten, fifteen miles without seeing another soul. But if you’re (a) male, and (b) feeling lonesome, here’s what to do. Get out of the car and unzip your trousers. Then watch that skyline. You just know what’s going to come thundering over the next rise. No, not the cavalry. If only.

The minute you start to feel that blessed relief flood through your groin you can guarantee you’re going to have visitors. Generally it’ll be a family with a bunch of rowdy kids, all charged up on sugar and grease, the boys affecting disgust, the girls horror, the parents disbelief. Or it might be a gang of rowdy youths heading to town after a hard week herding cows; they’re inclined to shout encouragement or derision – it all depends on how good a look they get of your private parts. But worse, far worse than all of these, are traffic cops.

Traffic cops have nothing to do, at least not in the daytime. I once sat in a café in Wyoming and had lunch with a traffic cop who told me that both his partners were off work sick and that he therefore had 10,000 square miles of territory to patrol. Ten thousand. It may be 99% cattle range, but it’s a hell of a lot of cattle range. “But hey,” he said, “nothing much happens till the weekend. Then it’s mostly teenaged kids. DWIs. That kinda thing.”

So, traffic cops are bored. If they pull over to the side of the road the least they want is to stretch their tired limbs and exercise their jaw muscles for a few minutes. And they hope – in a forlorn kind of way – that they’ll rack up some points on that giant chart they keep back at Headquarters.

You all know about the chart I take it? Okay, Clint – let’s see now. That’s six DWIs at ten points apiece, two bank robbers at twenty-five, and the runaway cow – hey, you had yourself quite a week out there in Custer County. I reckon that’s sixty… plus fifty… call it ten for the cow… You sure it weren’t a bull, now? ‘Cos that’d be another twenty-five… then – hey, nearly forgot the homicidal maniac; that’s another fifteen at least…. Boy, that puts you at number three and rising. And what’s this you’re claiming - a British travel writer? Well, look at that – you done shot clear off the chart.

While you stand there with your knees pressed together Clint, having got out of the car and left the lights flashing lazily – strictly for the amusement of any passing families or gangs of youths – ambles across and asks whether you’re all right. No, actually I’m breaking my neck here – and I just pissed on my sandals. But he doesn’t hear, because, having seen your out-of-state plates, he wants to see your driver’s licence.

A British driver’s licence is a thing of wonder to Americans, because (a) it’s designed to last till you hit seventy, so the expiry date is generally decades away – although the older you get the less remote that seems, I have to say – and (b) there’s no picture on it, unless you’ve got the new-fangled one. “So,” he says, “you’re British. Welcome to Wyoming.” At which point he holds out his hand, quite unaware that you just used your right hand to shove your dribbling member back inside your trousers. Then he wants to know if you’re quite sure you haven’t broken down `cos helping you would be the neighbourly thing to do. Finally, he starts to reminisce – as your thighs turn to jelly – about when he was in the U.K. Back in the eighties with the USAAF. Green-ham Common. You heard o’ that?

In the end, of course, you learn. You want a pee, you take the dirt roads. Swing off the highway, ride over the next ridge, and you’ll have all the solitude you need. On the other hand, if you experience total mechanical failure in the middle of nowhere - well, you know just how to summon up some assistance. Don’t you?