THREE WEEKS LATER, THE four of us are standing in the parking lot of EuroTour Rentals, just outside Gatwick International Airport, picking up the keys to our large white van. England is hardly exotic travel. Nevertheless, everything looks different and smells different—maybe it’s the gas they use—and there is a bracing snap of foreignness in the early-morning air.
Since I blurted out my proposal, our travel plans have been revised and refined. The first issue was Louie and our unwillingness to abandon the pooch for several weeks while the rest of us go gallivanting around the United Kingdom. For a while we leaned toward a full-service motor home, complete with comfortable beds, a kitchen, and a bathroom with shower. The deal breaker was the ten-minute video detailing how to empty and wash the plastic receptacle connected to the toilet. At that point, we decided we’d take our chances on dog-friendly bed-and-breakfasts and small hotels and a camper van, which in a pinch can sleep four.
Thank goodness, we lowered our sights. Keeping this large unfamiliar vehicle on the correct side of the road is challenge enough. Conceptually, driving on the left instead of the right doesn’t sound hard, but the old pattern is so ingrained and the consequences for screwing up so severe that in the first couple of hours, the phrase RIGHT equals DEATH is never far from my mind, and after navigating several tricky intersections, I have a cramp in my left hand from clutching the wheel so tightly. If Sarah weren’t reading the signs and navigating, I don’t think I could handle it.
Stonehenge is near Amesbury, 90 miles southwest of London. Including a quick stop for breakfast, it takes us three hours, and when we turn off the highway into a huge parking lot lined with tour buses, it’s just after noon. Before we disembark, we reinsert the soundtrack of This Is Spinal Tap and play “Stonehenge.” The song begins with an intro spoken by Nigel, and whatever drama it delivers is derived from the smoke machine:
In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, lived a strange race of people, the Druids. No one knows who they were or what they were doing, but their legacy remains hewn into the living rock of Stonehenge.…
Then we pull off our sweaters, revealing the Spinal Tap T-shirts underneath. Sarah wears basic black with the name of the band across the chest. Noah’s has an illustration of Nigel’s amplifier set to 11, and I’ve got the “Tap into America” concert tee, listing the scheduled tour dates, five of which are labeled CANCELLED. I don’t let Sarah put a T-shirt on Louie because clothes on a dog are undignified.
After a last check in the mirror, we step out of the van. We line up at the Welcome Center and purchase tickets. Then we line up again for the bus that ferries you to the site. Then we file off and walk out toward the circle of stones in the center of a large open plain. “We did it,” says Noah. “We’re actually here.”
One minute you’re in the kitchen flipping pancakes and talking shit. The next you’re in a field in southern England gazing up at stones the approximate color, size, and shape of whales. Even more than the immensity of the stones themselves, we’re gawking at the scale of the undertaking and the grunt labor and engineering required to transport them hundreds of miles, prop them up, and plant them in this near-perfect circle. This may be the first public works project on record, and it occurs to me that while we would all love to leave a lasting impression, what we really need is something to do while we’re here.
The realization is a little scary. As much as I’ve been enjoying dropping off and picking up Noah at camp, doing the grocery shopping, and roasting the occasional piece of fish or chicken, I suspect it’s not going to be enough of a project for long. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to get out there and wrestle with the big rocks again.
As we’re all trying to haul aboard this epic scene, each in our own way, I notice another couple with a boy and a girl a bit older than Noah. The father, who has long hair parted in the middle and circular wire-rimmed glasses, has the air of a doddering old rock star. As he gets closer, I see why. It’s Ozzy Osbourne. When he’s safely out of earshot, I share the celebrity sighting with Sarah and Noah.
“See that guy over there? He’s Ozzy Osbourne, and way back in the mists of time, when Druids roamed the land, he was the front man of a heavy metal band called Black Sabbath, and they were Spinal Tap before Spinal Tap.”
“Like Stonehenge was the pyramids before the pyramids.”
“Pretty much. Not only that, Ozzy bit the head off a bat.”
“No way,” says Noah.
“Yes way.”
“Travis, was this really necessary?” asks Sarah.
“Absolutely. It’s an important part of rock history.”