Mad Max is a tour company named for the lady who started it and her sweet little dog. Our last day in Bath and off we went on a Mad Max tour beginning with Stonehenge. In 1956 archaeologist Richard Atkinson, said, "To all these questions beginning ‘why?’ There is but one short, simple, and perfectly correct answer: we do not know and shall probably never know." But when you stand before these mammoth stones, you do wonder not just why, but how?!
(C says--I have promised to type as he wrote it, not to change the "bad" words, etc., will try...)
Regarding Stonehenge, I think I expected too much. It’s about an hour From Bath, a beautiful ride through the English countryside. We were the first tour through the complex for the day, thus low crowd density. I like low crowd density. At the risk of having readers think I have no respect for the past, I just didn’t get it. Yea, the rocks were big but I thought they would be bigger--kinda like pyramid big! I had my audio guide hung around my neck, punched the right numbers in at the "proper" time and still didn’t get it. 5,000 years before Christ some guys decided to dig a big circular trench. 500 years later, some guys rounded up some big rocks from 50 - 150 miles away and stuck them in the ground inside the circular trench. 7,000 years later, nobody can figure out why. There’s speculation. But no one has yet figured out this mystery. I kept seeing myself 7,000 years ago saying to my buddy, "Hey, Rufus--I got an idea. Let’s dig a huge trench, figure a way to drag some big boulders over here and stick them in the ground inside the circle.--you with me?" When Rufus says to me, "I don’t get it. Why do we want to do this?" I respond, "I don’t know --just seems like a cool thing to do. Let someone else smarter than us, figure out why we did this." Rufus says--"Count me in and I think I can get a couple of my buddies to help too, if you supply the beer." And Stonehenge came into being. Call me irreverent but that’s my theory.
The rest of the day (as well as this visit) was great. Cindy has already wrote about what we did, so I’ll sign off. If you have any other ideas with equal merit to mine, please advise. I’d love to hear them.
Cindy’s Notes:
This was followed by a visit to another stone circle in Avebury, Wiltshire. These stone circles are larger in the area they occupy and the ditches around them along with the earthen banks but the stones are not as large. Somewhere in this part of the day we were able to stop to take photos of one of the chalk horses that are found on the hillsides of this part of England. This horse is thought to have been created around 1742, It is 189 feet tall and 170 feet wide. Quite amazing.
Lunch was in Lacock. If you remember Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice you’ve been to Lacock. If you’ve watched Jane Austin’s Emma you’ve seen Lacock. Seen Hogwarts? Lacock Abbey. Judith Dench in Cranford? Yep, Lacock. Movie companies have used both Castle Combe and Lacock often and have put all electric wiring, etc. underground. It makes it much easier to film period pieces. We had a nice lunch, no dinner will be necessary, at a small cafe, took lots of photos, love those sheep and lambs.
On to Castle Combe, voted prettiest village in England. We were able to amble through the village and see a spot or two that we missed yesterday. A very sweet way to end the tour. No drama, no family fights, no need to call the police.
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