The Midwest Farmer's Daughter says...

... "It's a long row to hoe."

It's not a long road to hoe.
No one hoes a road.
You hoe a row.
Up here northern midwest, it's a row of beans, usually.
Sometimes beets.
Occasionally, corn.

Those lines you see in a field of lovely crops?
Each line is a row.
And when you are a farmer, you conceive lots and lots of children, so you have lots and lots of people to walk up and down each row and chop out the weeds with a hoe.

When there are a lot of weeds in the row of crops which you are assigned to hoe, that is a long row to hoe.
When you stand on one end of your field and you can't see the other end because of the curvature of the earth, that is a long row to hoe.

Say, for instance, you are a presidential hopeful campaigning in a state which favors one of your opponents. You would then have a long row to hoe. You may even have a long road ahead.

But you never have a long road to hoe.

Trust me, no one hoes a road.

Carry on...