Saturday July 23rd, we discover a better way to get to and from the airport. It turns out that there are “private cars” for hire. These are cars where you have to arrange for a date ahead of time, as opposed to just picking any old taxi off the street. I likened it to hookers vs. call girls, and Ken just shook his head in disgust at me, but I stand by the analogy. The private car was half the price of the taxi ride, and that also makes it cheaper than taking the trains and way faster.
The British are much more efficient at renting cars than the French, and we were soon set to cruise in our sweet little Audi A4. Now, as you all know, some days are better than others when you travel. Sometimes, the journey is half the fun, and sometimes, the journey is a terrifying death drive from hell.
It started off pretty good. Driving on the left wasn’t too bad, especially since we were on a “dual carriageway” heading out of town. The problem was, so was every other person from London. We sat in stop-n-go traffic and what should have taken half an hour, took two hours. There was some mysterious point when enough people turned off the road or something, and traffic finally started to flow. We uneventfully made it to our first waypoint: Stonehenge. (And other assorted henges.)
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| In front is the slaughter stone |
Very cool. It would only have been better if there were no other people except maybe some Druids and pagans doing trippy things at sunset. It was hard to visit with so much activity going on around it. It seems like a place where you need time to sit and listen to the wind blow across the hill, and let it tell you things about long ago. Not to be on this trip, however.
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| Who says spirits don't dwell in stones? |
We felt good, but the driving had taken a little toll on Ken. The roads are twisty and very narrow in the countryside. Like the width of one Suburban. When two cars come at opposite directions, it’s a cross between a game of chicken, and a square dance move. You’re cooperating and fighting for space at the same time. You have to roll up the passenger windows, or lose and eye to the brambles and the bustles in the hedgerows.
It went to pieces before we knew. Garmina was our downfall. Our next stop was through Glastonbury, to find the Chalice Well and the ancient Tor of Arthurian and Holy Grail legends. (Yes, this weekend was all about English mythology.)
Somehow though, Garmina got confused. I was a little nervous that we weren’t seeing signs – any signs – as we drove longer and longer in the wrong direction.
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| We were not HERE |
The problem was that we didn’t have a larger map of England from Hertz, (you can believe we bought one on the way to Bath) and Garmina doesn’t tell you what direction you’re driving and you can’t zoom out far enough to see where you’re going wrong.
So when Garmina announced that we were at the Chalice Well, well, we were actually in a field just past a junkyard somewhere far, far, away.
I will tell you that we persisted, but it will end sadly. Despite the carsick prone children, Ken insisted we turn around. Not because he likes sick kids, but because he loves me, and he felt really bad because he knew this was something I really wanted to see. I had visions of the family hiking to the top of the Tor as the sun went down, I wanted to see Wiccans and hippies and people who believe in faeries and priestesses.
As we curved around a bend, I saw the Tor and it was magnificent. More so, as we got closer to our destination. There was no way to take a picture, as every time I lost sight of the horizon, I got a little dizzy myself. We pulled into the parking lot of the Chalice Well at 5:55pm. There is not one open parking spot, and the doors close at 6pm. A bad bit of timing that was only made worse, because I had uttered the prediction of that exact scenario a few minutes prior. A woman in green robes told us that we could still climb the Tor, but I declined. The kids were carsick and wanting dinner and a bed. The futility of the last few hours was so heavy; we were all tense. It was going to take another hour to get to Bath, so we turned the car around and pressed on.
Once in Bath, we left the kids behind with the promise of bringing them some food. I am sure that my impression of Bath is tainted because of the day we just had. But it is supposed to be this sort of luxurious spa retreat town with hot springs. What I saw was that it is apparently the bachelorette party capital of England, where girls in their 20s go to guzzle sweet alcoholic drinks at the TGIFridays and flirt with the guys who are in town for a bachelor party of their own. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not what I expected.
We wandered around and managed to find a pub with just locals in it. Not one sparkly mini-dress or high heel in the place. We had a good little pub dinner and took some fish and chips back to the kids. (bridge of spiders) We closed our room door to the remnants of Calvin Klein One perfume haunting the Holiday Inn Express hallway, climbed into our beds, and hoped tomorrow would be better. 
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