A Visit To The Hanging Rocks

Today we drove to* and from** Ston.ehenge.

When we arrived, we had to feel up some rocks:

 Stoneh.enge is actually made from two different kinds of rocks.  The rocks that make up the inner sections are ALWAYS warmer than the other kind.  They have the examples so you can feel the difference and also because you're not allowed to go up to the real monument.

With the introduction out of the way we walked to the monument:

Aunt Roberta and I got the audio guides...

while the boys played around with the cameras:

As they were getting bored with taking pictures a dropped map of the site blew our way:

Then after they had figured out where everything was on the map, it was time to roll around on the grass for a while:

We were only on-site for about an hour (and that included an ice cream break) but it was very very interesting.

*St.onehenge is two and a half hours from our house.  When we were 40 miles from the site our GPS suddenly jumped from saying we were 45 minutes away to saying we were an hour and 45 minutes away.  Worried that there was some sort of terrible traffic jam ahead of us, we pulled over and ate lunch at the next restaurant we saw.  After lunch, once again anticipating a giant traffic jam, we went on a bathroom run.  Like a lot of other Br.itish restaurants, the handicapped restroom is separate from the other restrooms plus the changing table is located there.  I took the boys into the handicapped bathroom... while I was changing Brayton, McColley finally succumbed to temptation and pulled the red cord that hangs next to the toilet.  Suddenly the room was filled with a high frequency beeping noise.  Terrified, McColley pulled the cord again.  I ordered him away from the cord while I finished changing Brayton.  Finally I was able to find the reset button and the noise stopped.  We informed the manager that there was NOT an emergency and McColley learned to not randomly pull strings.

**Since we'd driven all that way for just one site, we decided to try and find something we could stop at on our way home.  Looking at some maps, we found a ruined Roman city that wasn't far out of our way.  I inputed the address and we began driving.  As we entered the city of Reading (which seemed a bit too far north for where we wanted to be) I asked Aunt Roberta to check the map.  According to the map, we'd already driven past the Roman ruins, yet the GPS was leading us farther northward.  Instead of continuing to follow it, we deleted the ruins from our itinerary and instead got a lovely driving tour of Reading... and a slightly longer trip home.