After three days in Cornwall, I’ve come to realize that UK road signs don’t address the sphincter-tightening condition of many roads in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of small towns that have been around since the Normans.
If you think roads around my Tennessee hometown of Fayetteville were twisty and narrow, you need to think again. They are interstate roads compared to what we’ve been driving on.
One-lane road with tall hedgerows on either side. Single-lane road that twists around a 16th century building that some guy is painting, leaning out into the already restricted road. “Larger” two-lane roads where you inevitably meet a 16-wheeled lorry going around a corner. One-way street through the center of town, with dogs and tourists and women with strollers walking in the street, oblivious to the danger. And this in a rental car with a 1,000 pound deductible.
These roads have been here forever and aren’t going to change. I guess it’s one reason most cars in the UK are so tiny.
But I do have one small suggestion: a new sign that warns of what’s to come. Get the lube ready, because the road (and your sphincter) are about to get tight.
About the sign: First you do a Google search for “animated buttholes.” Then you try to figure out how to merge an image with a shape with words. And once you actually manage to put them together, you can’t figure out how to group the damned things, so you take a photo and go from there.
To Europe ... and Back 