Ok, massacre is probably an overstatement, but I just wanted to get your attention with this next post.

In general, people of English domain will not travel more than 2 hours by car in one trip for anything other than a full-on road trip. Trains, sure, no problem. But driving in the UK is a different story. And while the entire country can probably fit inside just one of our medium-sized states, the amount of stuff here; terrain and people crammed in; make the roads a bit wonky. They are tiny (imagine half-lane sizes with no shoulder to speak of). Not to mention driving on the “wrong” side of the road with cars zooming past you with like 2 inches to spare. No wonder they hate driving! And to top it off, throw in a few inches of snow and ice and that’s what we’ve got to look forward to!

We woke up early in anticipation of our trip, AND we wanted to cook our gracious hosts a traditional “American French Toast” for breakfast. That means up by 8AM instead of the standard 11AM affair we’ve become accustomed to. Unfortunately it still took ages to prep and cook what seemed like a lot of food at first, but after putting it all together, it only managed to fill up 3.5 out of 4 of us (Adam required “second” first breakfast). The cinnamon sugar topping was delish and while we had no syrup, honey made a great substitute.

We cleared things up and ready to go by 1030AM, which is the exact time we planned for. This gives us exactly 2 hours to get to our first “appointment” with a 5000 (plus or minus) year old landmark; Stonehenge.

Its like old times being with our friends. We fell right back into our travel-ways, Adam and Abi masterfully plan everything and Jake and I get to reap the rewards.

The motorway was surprisingly clear, but I think that’s because of the snow. While it isn’t currently snowing, there’s still some snow-residue from last night, and I guess there are no plows in this country. So that means everything shuts down. Sounds a lot like NC was this past winter.

It was nice sitting in the back taking it all in. Traffic only picked up in the last few miles, and we could actually see the stones from the road. Too bad we already purchased the tickets online (for £18 each), otherwise we would have just pulled over and walked up to the monument. But then we’d miss the gift shop and that’s the best part.

The visitor center reminded me of Mesa Verde in Southern Colorado. Meaning that it has a unique architectural design to it that makes it stand out. Supremely modern in a place that is prehistoric. Anyways, the wind was glacial and blowing hard, so we bundled up in everything we had (Thanks, Abi for lending out your extra jacket!).

There was one group ahead of us in the line. We could hear the woman in the booth explain how the exhibit is currently closed due to snow. She said a bit more, but that was the gist of it. So when it was our turn, we heard the same spiel: “The exhibit is closed until further notice due to high snow-drifts along the path. We apologize for the inconvenience but we might open up in 45 minutes. If you want to walk up to the outer ‘gate’ it will take approximately 45-50 minutes or you can wait here and we might open.”

Across the entrance and up the road we saw that the road looked completely clear. So naturally, we were a bit confused as to what snow she was referring. Apparently the snow drifts are very high near the exhibit and they can’t allow anyone to go up there until they’ve had a chance to clear it. Sounds easy enough but then we forgot, there’s no plows here.

In the meantime, there is a cafe that is calling our name. Steak pasty’s were pretty much the only thing on the menu (say it like ‘past-eee’ for Americans). The pasty was created for miners of the olden days because the outer crust forms a thick handle (similar to a calzone) to hold with dirty hands and still be able to eat. They tossed the “crust” but that’s seriously the best part. So buttery and flakey and delicious….uhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm….[channeling Homer Simpson]

After wasting as much time as we could, we were ready for our adventure to begin. The four of us are no strangers to a long walk, and we figured we could do it in half the time they suggested. But first, we stopped back at the front to hear the same girl repeat herself as if she didn’t remember us: “The exhibit is closed until further notice due to high snow-drifts along the path. We apologize for the inconvenience but we might open up in 45 minutes. If you want to walk up to the outer ‘gate’ it will take approximately 45-50 minutes or you can wait here and we might open.”

We inquired further as to our tickets and if the exhibit does not open, will they issue a refund? She said that they would issue a refund if they don’t give us “tangible” tickets. So what that means is that even though we purchased our tickets online, they have to give us a paper ticket to put it in their system as us visiting the exhibit. She said she could print them out but then if they don’t open, we can’t get a refund.

Okay that makes sense. So lets go for a walk and see what we see.

The first stop wasn’t more than about 10 yards ahead. Old thatched roof cottages, apparently built as temporary dwellings for the architects of Stonhenge, which by the way dates about 5000 B.C. So you can imagine the type of dwelling we’re talking about here, a small circle firepit in the center of a yurt-like home built out of twigs. A slightly raised platform with a tanned hide as a mattress. All-in-all it was pretty swank living, except when a fire’s going the place is completely smokey and its pitch black in here.

I have no idea if these cottages are actually as old as Stonehenge. I believe that they were re-built to represent what the cottages would have been like, but I can’t say for certain because we didn’t make it to the placard before we saw a group of people lining up for what looked like entrance to the bus. Is the exhibit open!?

We rushed over to join the masses, only to realize they were a big group of school kids. The bus driver opened up but didn’t indicate weather or not we could get on. So we got on and sat and waited with another 3 individuals. Not 2 minutes later the driver came back on and said that he didn’t know whether the exhibit was open or not and we asked if we could just get a ride up there. He didn’t know and apparently had no way of communicating with any other employee here.

What’s funny is that he had a walkie talkie AND a CB radio from which we could hear other employees chattering. Not to mention the cell phone sticking out of the side of his belt. Seriously no one can communicate. Abi reaffirmed that any kind of inclement weather such as snow is something that English folks just aren’t prepared for as it happens so infrequently.

Okay, fine. So we left the bus and embarked on the “long journey” ahead to the stones. While we’re walking, I’ll give you a little background about Stonhenge;

Stonehenge was produced by a culture that left no written records. How and why it was even built is still up for debate. There are, of course, many myths. Some pretty interesting aspects include the arrangement of the 5 central stones (trilithons), embanked avenue and heel stone – which are in the shape of a horseshoe, are aligned to the sunset of Winter Solstice and Summer Solstice. There was a natural landform at the site’s location following this line, and likely inspired the construction of the monument. It was suggested that people gathered here during winter vs. summer.

There is virtually nothing to indicate how these stones were erected. Some suggest supernatural methods, assuring that the stones were impossible to move due to their massive size. How could these stones have been transported by prehistoric people without any type of assistance? But more importantly, Why?

It felt really great to stretch our legs. We overtook several slower hikers (much like the TA), and despite a completely snow-free road and a sun-filled sky, it was excruciatingly cold. My face went numb in minutes. With the exhibit in our sights, we noticed that busses started rolling up the drive. Oooh maybe they’ve opened? We noticed there were no passengers on the busses so maybe not?

We were close now, nearly to the outer rim of the exhibit. There were probably a dozen other people ahead of us, who all walked ahead without issue. And in that moment I could swear that time slowed down to a halt and I knew that we would not be so lucky. Yup, I was right…The incoming employee was on us.

“I’m sorry but you can’t enter the exhibit without a ticket”. She relays to us. Yes, we have our tickets. Here’s proof! Abi and I both whip our phones out to show the girl, who we continued to explain that we were told by the front that we should just walk up here. But, this girl said that she cannot let us pass. What about the 12 other people ahead of us? She ignored this and continued to insist that we cannot go past without our ticket.

Ok, so this wouldn’t be so bad if we hadn’t just walked the last 25 minutes in this bitter cold to get here, just to go back and do it over again. It seemed stupid and silly, and now there were loads of other humans coming behind us on the now-running busses. Figures! Unfortunately she would not accept our mobile tickets and insisted we go back on this next bus down to the visitor center.

Adam refused to go back out of principal. He pushed forward and didn’t look back. Abi, Jake and I sort of stood there not really sure what to do. The employee also had no idea what to do as she was clearly trying to make an example out of us.

Not wanting to cause a problem, I volunteered to get our tickets while everyone else waited here. But now that Adam was up ahead, the girl’s attention was focused on dealing with that situation.

If you know Adam at all, this reaction isn’t surprising. And honestly, if Jake and I weren’t foreigners here, we’d probably put up a bigger argument. But we didn’t want to have our story end with us in an English jail, so we shut our mouths and got on the bus. Abi came with us. Lets just hope we can do this quickly.

At this point, I was torn between amusement and annoyance. It took us nearly 20 minutes to go back and start all over again (only now we have a long line to wait in). Hopefully Adam won’t get himself into too much trouble. Abi confirmed with the girl at the front that we DID NOT need to come back here and our phone tickets would have been fine. Ha! Employee girl! Not that this fixes anything, but it felt good to hear anyways.

You really had to be there to appreciate the hilarity in this whole thing, but Abi was so funny in how she took everything in stride. She casually mentioned that she hoped Adam wouldn’t get arrested before we could see the stones! As we loaded on the bus to go back up, Adam called. It was difficult to understand everything, but she said it sounded like there was a tussle and a heated argument going on in the background. Adam blurted out something like get here quickly with my ticket before I get arrested and then it cut off. Oh boy, this should be good!!!!

We made it back, FINALLY and as soon as we stepped off the bus our eyes darted about for any sign of tall Adam or police officers. It didn’t take much to see him moving our direction with two officer’s escorting him. We didn’t know what we should do but Abi waved and he waved back, seemingly jovially. That’s a good sign! Abi ran up to show them the tickets but it appeared that they didn’t care much about that now. Jake and I took our cue to sidle out of the way so as to avoid getting caught up into any of this (again, as foreigners, we don’t want to piss anyone of authority off unnecessarily).

Jake and I joined in with the other tourists to see the thing we came here for: Stonehenge.

Coated in snow, the sight was pretty amazing and magical. Up close the stones were definitely impressive in size. In the past tourists could actually walk up and touch / climb on the stones. But now its roped off for its own protection.

I snapped pictures like crazy and found myself near one of the ‘Heritage’ employees who explained a bit about the stones to another visitor. Then all of a sudden a rook flew up and landed on all of us. Hands, shoulders, even one person’s head. It didn’t seem to care that we were humans and not trees. The employee had some seed that she fed it (which I’m sure it was expecting). I think she said his name was Percy or something adorably English. A regular visitor I’m guessing, and one that doesn’t need to show proof of a printed ticket! Lucky bird. 😉

Speaking of tickets, I wonder where Abi and Adam are? Its probably been 20 minutes since we saw them, so we made our way back toward the front. Abi spotted us and came forward with a smile on her face. She seemed in good spirits, despite the craziness. We didn’t make her rehash the whole story, but she said that she had to yell at the manager who was apparently rude and childish to her because of her “association” with Adam. In the end she was allowed to enter but Adam was told that he is BANNED from Stonehenge. Can they really enforce this? We could see him standing off to the back of the first rope as the 3 of us went back up to look at the stones and get a few more photos.

We couldn’t wait to hear the full story. Once Abi got her fill, we all headed back to the bus and met Adam nearby. Even though he is now “banned” he had a smile on his face and the manager reluctantly allowed him to ride the bus back to the entrance. A quick stop in the gift shop and off we went.

Adam regaled us with the full version of the events as we continued our road trip to our next destination: the charming town of Marlborough. It was a harrowing tale of a young lad who was wrongfully put up against an arrogant young police officer who was trying to pick a fight with him, only to fall flat on his arse in the mud and snow. I’m imaging an old Charlie Chaplin movie as Adam regaled his story.

Something else we learned about English authority. In general, posh people do not confront authority. And authority is also not super confrontational. Passive-aggressive behaviors are the standard. The way that an English person speaks almost always indicates whether they are posh or not. Adam is an anomaly because he speaks posh and is not afraid of confrontation. Plus he’s a massive body-builder. This causes confusion amongst authority because its not something they’re used to or generally equipped to deal with.

It was surely entertaining and made the rest of our country-road drive fly by. Rolling hills of green and white with dots of sheep. The snow appeared to be melting off the roads in this area and it was just so beautiful and quaint. We arrived in Marlborough and drove down into the little village, which was ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE. Did you know that Kate Middleton went to school here?

Our Airbnb flat was nestled along the main street between several larger buildings that lined the way. Ours was the smaller of the buildings, it looked like a very old house that was converted into apartments. We were up at the top, 3rd floor. It was a bit narrow up the long staircase, but inside was a warm and welcoming flat. The floors were ancient. There was a faint smoky smell but I’m not surprised, this building is probably hundreds of years old!

It was late afternoon when we arrived, and dropped our stuff and sat for only a moment before going back out to explore this adorable village. Despite the cold, it was so cute and fun to walk about, snapping photos of everything. After 20 or 30 minutes, we popped into a pub for a pint. Awesome, quintessential English pub experience. This is what its all about! The beer and cider were both delicious.

We followed that up with a quick stop to the market to pick up food for dinner; Steak and 2 Veg (plus potatoes, some fancy camembert cheese and prosciutto)! And all for less than 15 quid! Adam and Abi prepared a most delicious feast that we all enjoyed as we watched some classic good old movies (Ghost Busters).

That night, one big chore was accomplished. We decided where to go next. I literally opened up a map and pointed to the first city that stood out; Edinburgh, Scotland. We found and booked a room in someone’s home in the nearby village, Leith, for a few days, that will be our first stop when we depart our friends in about a week. We also thought it’d be fun to take a scenic train up there, so we booked that too.

In all, the day was so much more than we could have expected. A massacre it really wasn’t, but it is probably one for the record books. The first time the exhibit had to close for thigh-high snow, the first time someone was banned from a World Heritage site and a story to remember for a really long time!

English Roadtrip Part 2 coming soon…