We’re still in Wales, but barely. The mountains have been replaced by much gentler hills, the grouse by green fields. There are still sheep grazing, but their pastures adjoin ones holding black and white cows. Perhaps, most taletelling, the rain has stopped and the sun even came out.

We’re on the M something, so the road is much straighter as well, which is why I can write. The only straight roads in England and Wales are either the M highways or the paths of ancient Roman roads. All the rest wind around like cattle paths. When the weather is overcast, I completely lose my sense of direction unless I pull out a map.

Another sign we’re still physically in Wales is the road signs printed in both English and Welsh. The language seems made up of L’s and Y’s and W’s, or pairs of those, and ending in “au.” Some of the people in the fish and chip shop where we ate last night were speaking this consonantal language. Francis flipped through the channels on Rebekah’s boombox this morning and found a station playing country music in Welsh. It’s a language older than the Roman roads built across this land built to subdue a country that would remain independent for centuries, even after the rest of England was unified under one ruler. Passing through its valleys surrounded by mountains of rock, one can see why this land was so hard to invade or why no one would want to invade it. It’s a stark land, beautiful but not much good for anything except raising sheep. And tourism.