I probably wouldn’t make a separate trip here either but I’d have to say The Angel of the North is quite amazing and the photograph I took of her (or him) is one of my favorite photos of the entire two week road trip. Designed by Anthony Gormley and completed in 1998 it is a contemporary steel sculpture of an angel, 66 ft tall with wings measuring 177 ft across. Interestingly, the wings do not stand straight sideways, but are angled 3.5 degrees forward to create “a sense of embrace”.  According to Gormley, the significance of an angel was three-fold: first, to signify that beneath the site of its construction, coal miners worked for two centuries; second, to grasp the transition from an industrial to information age, and third, to serve as a focus for our evolving hopes and fears. It stands on a hill on the southern edge of Low Fell overlooking the A1 and A167 roads and should you find yourself traveling that route, it’s definitely worth a stop.