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I did my laundry this morning. I've done it other days as well but this morning I did it with a Bible quotation pinned to the wall. "Have Faith", it started.

Usually laundromat messages say "No oily clothing" or "Leave room for the water". But this is Kentucky and in Kentucky you get inspiring messages on the wall and a copy of the Bible among the back-numbers of Big Truck Driver and Appalachian Bluegrass Music Monthly.

For a supposedly secular nation, America is a nest of contradictions. The state is neither for or against religion but the money is marked "In God We Trust" (which is quite a lot of trouble to go to when you remember that one American coin doesn't even say what it's worth). A few days back I passed a school which proclaimed "We Believe We Care", which was either a tribute to modesty or a sign of what happens when you forget a comma. I also passed a house with a sign larger even than those you see outside churches. "I believe in and pray for George W. Bush", it said.

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The people of Kentucky believe God is on their side. It used to be here, as in other states, that motorcyclists had to wear helmets. Then lobbyists complained the law went against the constitution's insistence on freedom and the laws were repealed. The consequence is that overweight Easyriders roar about bare and often bald-headed, wearing red neck scarves, a look of unbearable superiority and the floppy moustaches you thought nobody had grown since 1976.

As one of my partners on this ride, Tim Hewitt, said: "There's nothing in the Bible about racing about on a motorbike without a helmet but there's plenty about drinking alcohol, so we go day after day through one dry county after another while medical costs for crippled and brain-damaged motorcyclists go up and up."

We are in a dry county right now. We are in Berea, pronounced Berry-er, on a camp site for Americans who drive ocean liners along the interstates and tow cars behind them to use in town. Such is the frustration of some of us that we plan to drive into neighbouring Lexington and be damned by the Lord for the beer we bring back.

As for more general religious belief, I heard yesterday of a church in Kentucky that once proclaimed the startling news that rattlesnakes were an excellent guide to piety. If you believed hard enough, God would instruct the rattlesnake to sleep in your hands. On the other hand, sinners would have the critter going for the jugular and - like bare-headed motorcyclists - they'd be justifying themselves before their maker sooner than they expected.

Sadly, the rattlesnake-fondling congregation grew steadily smaller. They are now united, sinners all, in some leafy graveyard. The serpents of sin slither on above their unnoticing eyes.