About a year ago, I spent 3 weeks in England for business. England is a wet and green place with the odd, for us slothful Americans, combination of local people who like to wander through the countryside in the rain. On Sunday, I decided to act like a local and drove myself up to the North Yorkshire Moors in search of the remains of a Roman road. After stopping for a lunch of Shepherd's Pie in Houlskye, I parked my car a the edge of a field near Goathland and went walking along damp trail.
Naturally, sheep and their droppings are everywhere. It's a wonder that I didn't get a stiff neck from looking down to avoid stepping in it. Along the way to Roman road, I crossed several fences with the lovely adaptation shown in the picture. The steps work wonderfully by keeping the sheep from crossing and the hikers from damaging the fence.
Finally reaching the Roman road, I was impressed that this was the widest and straightest road I'd seen in my previous 2 weeks in England. The Roman road you see in the picture was originally built around 150 AD, is more than 30 feet wide, and runs from York to near today's Whitby. A typical English road of today is shown below, with all its twists and turns. Frankly speaking, in this day of the car and motorcycle, I prefer the curvy road, but it did make me wonder why they can't be straight once in a while.
