Amazing Stonehenge

As I wrote in the book, I was so excited to get to see Stonehenge in southwest England after years of hearing about it. The first time Bill and I visited we were like the other tourists, staying behind the rope, way out on the edge of the whole area and looking in. But on the garden trip to England I wrote about in the Nature section here, we had special permission to go inside the circle at Stonehenge at dawn and watch the sun come up between the monoliths. We were there in May, so not the summer solstice, but impressive none-the- less. The black and white photo in the book doesn’t do it justice, so here are my color photos. At the solstice, the sun comes up in the middle and shines into the center of the site. There is still some question about the purpose of this massive structure, but it is obvious to me that it took a sophisticated knowledge of the seasons, sunrise timing and how to carve and move these twenty-five tonne (British ton) stones!