I was wondering what to title this image. It's a view east along Northshore Road in the Lake Mead Recreational Area.
As I was looking at the road that winds its way through the desert hills I got to thinking this is no Roman road, with all its twists and turns. And then I got to thinking of the Thomas Hardy poem.
Forty years on I can still recite the opening lines, “The Roman Road runs straight and bare as the pale parting-line in hair across the heath.”
After that I had to look it up and re-read it. If you're interested you can scroll down to the fourth poem at this link to Poet's Corner.
Hardy's Roman Road has mostly disappeared now, indeed it had mostly disappeared then when he wrote about it. It used to run from London to Exeter. It'd be interesting to think about how long it would take for this road through the desert to disappear. It's not the most traveled road, but then again, it must be traveled enough to justify the cost of building and maintaining it.
