London, Day 6: STONEHENGE

Okay, so Friday was probably my favorite day of the trip thus far. Saturday was pretty good too, but let's not be getting ahead of ourselves.

The sun came out for real on Friday. It got even colder outside, which wasn't so bad, since at least with all the blazing sunshine none of us were at risk for Seasonal Affective Disorder any longer. I'm from the Northwest. I like it gray. That being said, it's still nice to have a peek at the sun every once in a while.

Our Stonehenge bus didn't leave until noon. Therefore, we took the luscious opportunity to sleep in guilt-free. After which we wandered downstairs and scarfed down our customary hotel breakfast...fun fact, in Britain they eat baked beans in their traditional morning meal. A little bizarre at first, but you get used to it. And Henry's a great fan of marmalade. I suspect this is because it contains orange peel and orange peel, for some unknown reason, is his new favorite food.

Vacation is wonderfully relaxing when you don't have to be anywhere until noon. We walked slowly to the subway, enjoyed the ride, had lunch at a local cafe, and then got on the tour bus early. Okay, so our tour guide may have been a little bit on the psycho end of the lollipop.

With such a thick accent and cultural barriers, we're never sure if these tour people are friendly-aggressive or simply aggressive-aggressive, and also there's something about the hospitality industry that just sort of gets under my skin. On our honeymoon cruise there was this bread guy who seriously wouldn't get out of your face or stop smiling until you ate your ninth roll in a row.

The Stonehenge guide was similar. He kept trying to make detours to show us extra sights in hopes of getting a bigger tip, all the while cracking these horribly unfunny jokes and then point-blank demanding over the intercom that we all laugh and applaud him. Finally we made it to Stonehenge and hurried off the bus for the safety of Salisbury Plain. Salisbury Plain proved to be mercifully joke-free.

On the other hand, it was also unmercifully cold. But what do I care, because the first thing I see after picking up my audio guide is this:Shortly followed by this:Dustin and Stonehenge. Not sure it gets much better.

I could have stayed here all day despite the cold, but of course we only had a little more than an hour. So instead I took as many pictures as is humanly possible when one has rigid icicles for fingers.
It finally got dark enough that we had to go back to the bus and the *sigh* overly-zealous tour guide. But I'll put up with 45 minutes of painful blather if the restaurant we find afterward makes up for it...which it totally did.

Here's what happens when Daddy has something good that Henry doesn't have (yet). Yeah, it gets pretty intense at the dinner table.

Basically a perfect day, what more can I say? Nothing, so I'll be shutting up now. Thank you and goodnight.