04 Stonehenge

Stonehenge visitor center: To navigate on Google Maps, mouse over the small map in the lower left hand corner on the Google Maps screen. The blue dots are static images, such as this one. The viewer can look around, but can’t walk anywhere. For the ability to move, click on one of the blue lines in the small lower-left map and then either click farther along the blue line, or click on the map image.

 

In light of the potentially disrupting news from the House of Representatives today, I needed to get away for a while. The easiest way to do this, and also to be able to sleep in my own bed, is by taking a trip on Google Maps. Tonight’s visit is to Stonehenge.

The interesting aspect of virtually visiting Stonehenge is that in addition to driving around the henge on the local roads that have been maintained as smaller secondary roads, the viewer can also take a walking tour among the stones.

The picture in the screen shot is of the Visitor Center and shows what I think are representative dwellings where the people who built Stonehenge lived. To get to Stonehenge itself, click on the small lower-left map at Google Maps and navigate by following the blue lines (it’s a bit of a ‘drive’ to the right) and blue dots. Or click here if you’re in a hurry.

I enjoyed the drive from the village to the east and my stroll around the monument. I hope you do, too.

My evening hobby is traveling via Google Maps. It’s cheap. It’s easy. I get to sleep in my own bed when the journey is over.

I like visiting places where I’ve lived and with fifty addresses over a life in and around the military, I have plenty to choose from. My former home in Belgium now has new living room windows; one of my German homes has solar panels on its roof; other homes no longer exist.

I like to take virtual trips to places where friends live or have lived. My best friend when I was 11 moved to Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada when his dad was transferred, so I made a virtual visit the other night although I’m sure he no longer lives there. None of us live where we used to.

I also like “driving” to places I want to visit — (cue Abbot & Costello) Ni-Ag-Ara Falls!

Tonight’s visit is to Agatha Christie’s home, Greenway. I lived in England when I was a child, but, of course, no one ever took me to visit Mrs. Christie. I don’t know that either of us would have got much out of a visit.

On searching Google Maps for Greenway, I was thrilled to find that the service has a 360 degree view of the front lawn of Greenway, an interactive street view drive down two of the lanes leading to the home, and the 360 degree view on the dock on the River Dart.

 

Google Map’s panoramic view of the front lawn of Greenway.

Seeing where my favorite author lived and wrote the books I so enjoy adds a layer of appreciation to my reading.

 

Other Greenway websites:

 

Hat tip to K.d. McCrite:

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As for the ‘writing,’ (I’m supposing that’s what you’d call it, although Researcher Who Won’t Stop is more like it), I discovered I put my people in the wrong place by about five kilometers (for me, the 5K make a difference).  Since I first settled on the location, I thought I’d got the borderline-in-question correct, but in looking at Google maps, I see I was off.    If I wasn’t writing slowly enough already (1/4 of  the first story and 2 short stories), finding out the people were on the wrong side of the ‘tracks’ was like a tree in the road — I could get around it, but it would take work.  Luckily, the Google map exercise reminded me of Google Earth, and I’m pretty sure my people are now in an appropriate place.

So, now to be like a brick, and stay on task, not get discouraged*, not be perfect but be OK with it, and stop wasting time.

* In Duchess of Death, I learned that Agatha Christie wrote a play in 6 weeks.