Stonehenge

Google said that the drive from Salisbury to Stonehenge would take 21 minutes. I’m not sure exactly how long it did take, but it certainly felt like longer than 21 minutes. This was my first time driving on the wrong side of the road. We were very lucky to have a new car (less than 100 miles), with all the features - navigation, back up camera, distance sensors, etc. Jerynn sat up front, as she is the most susceptible to carsickness.  Ann sat in the middle of the backseat, to give her the best view and reduce the likelihood that she would get carsick. Dani sat behind me and mom sat behind Jerynn.

Craig had very specific instructions for me about driving in England for the first time. He said I should have a designated navigator, to provide turn by turn direction and help determine which lane I should be in as we entered a roundabout. Another person should focus on traffic signs and signals. Another person should keep an eye on traffic, to warn me of cars coming from an unexpected direction. In this way, I could concentrate on driving the vehicle in the wrong lane in an unfamiliar place.

Ann initially offered that we should use “left turn” for making a right and “right turn” for making a left, because we were on the opposite side of the road, which reverses these turns if you think about them as the number of lanes you are crossing to make the turn. Considering that neither Ann nor I can consistently identify our right and left, this was a plan for failure at every level. Instead, she focused on keeping our spirits high, providing encouragement to me as the driver, and reassuring our more nervous passengers that, in fact, both I and the other drivers were on the appropriate sides of the roads for our location.

I had Jerynn as my navigator. With her operating the car’s GPS and providing additional instruction such as “keep tight to my side” and “ get in the lane the red car is using,” we were able to manage our first short trip. Jerynn and I quickly settled on the “your way” and “my way” method of describing each turn, with additional comments like “this is the easy turn” (a left, which is into the closest lane without crossing as much traffic) or “keep to the middle lane” (as we entered a roundabout) or “third exit, which is like going straight through” (because so many roundabouts have more than exits than you’d expect).

Dani turned out to be very good at spotting speed limit signs, as soon as we had figured out what a speed limit sign looked like. She was very good about noticing the sign and providing that information each time I asked, which was usually some distance after passing the sign because I had to take some time getting comfortable with the road before I worried that I might be speeding. She was also adept at spotting other important road signs and determining which required comment and which could be described at a later time.

Mom and Dani also tried to keep up with taking pictures as we drove. It was very difficult to get the view we could see to show up in the picture. All too often, a hedge would appear just as soon as they had a camera out or the picture would be blurred by the movement of the vehicle. Eventually, I think they worked out a better system for taking pictures on either side of the vehicle - pictures certainly improved later in the drive. But I was too busy simply driving on the wrong side to listen much to their picture communication.

Stonehenge had a large parking lot, but I wanted to park in the back with the RVs because I wasn’t entirely confident about the new vehicle. I dropped Dani and mom off at the entrance while I found a wider spot near the far end of the lot. We paid for our tickets, took a bus to Stonehenge, and walked around the path. It was good to get out of the car. Dani and Jerynn took a silly snapchat video in which they said “here we are at Stonehenge” while showing a selfie of themselves pointing at Stonehenge (which was in front of them, not visible in the video).

From the left: Mom, Dani, Ann