Awesome Stones

At the Henge in Wiltshire

Catching up on part of the European jaunt. Getting the opportunity to visit Stonehenge was worth enduring: the lengthy bus trip, the dank medieval castle of the Windsors' and the tourist trap of Bath. A week late for the summer solstice so no magic sunrises, modern day druids or new age mysticism. Not quite as dramatic as expected. Of course having only experienced the site via film or television, I forgot the power of the camera to deceive. How else has Hollywood managed to portray Bogart (5' 8) or Cruise (5' 7) or a plethora of shorties as tall handsome leading men towering over their more statuesque leading ladies? Then again, I've never bothered to do any mind projections to imagine  pushing up close to 30 foot 50 ton boulders or dragging them from faraway sites. However, walk around the circle a couple of times and it begins to seep into the brain - no cranes, no bulldozers, no backhoes, no flatbed semis and likely not even decent crowbars. Not a bad engineering feat! I've never delved too deeply into all the theories purporting to explain the significance or use of the earlier works or the final  structure. Observatory, temple, meeting place, healing site or a combination may all be acceptable answers. Hard to subscribe to the Von Daniken notion of aliens beaming them from afar and planting them just to wow the locals. Even though built over a number of centuries, it is amazing the effort and expended by a Neolithic people - presumably not under duress - in creating a monument still mostly extant down through the ages. Too bad about the traffic noise, if anybody from the past was attempting to contact me the ring-tone got lost in the din. Still, to be on the safe side I purchased a trilithlon amulet to create a permanent link to the site.