sleeping or not...

...sadly I am more towards the 'not' end of the scale. I know from experience, history that I've never slept well in an upright position. Envious of people who can, those who are devoted to their recliners and can easily doze off with television blaring, as long as they are in their comfort zone. That is not me. I've been on cross country flights and known there is no point in closing my eyes, leaving home with ample reading material to while the hours away, with no effort made to get any shut-eye.

In recent years, I have though trial and error over time, found a combination of OTC that helps with routine awakening. I'm understanding part of the wakefulness is aging, but knowing the reason does not make being wide-eyed any easier. And know part of the problem with not sleeping in flight was my failure to factor in the hours and hours spent getting across the Atlantic. I should have had my 'magic potion' more accessible (sadly, in checked luggage), to at least provide a little spark of hope for sleeping.

Though we were packed in like sardines, the airline does provide passengers with some handy items that might improve success for resting. Flight attendants pass out little bags containing sleep masks, to block light, and ear plugs to block snoring neighbors.  I have it on good authority from a reliable source that the flight staff has sleeping quarters for overnight/long distance flights, so they can actually get horizontal in bunks during the trip.

A recent addition for the insomniacs among us is a variety of inflight movies, TV and music. Another little plastic bag has ear buds for listening to a variety of movies or television/HBO shows or your choice of music. Conveniently, suddenly, all for free on July 1, which  happens to be the day we were leaving for Europe. A variety of entertainment forms for those who were wide awake around the clock, dashing through numerous time zones overnight. Mostly, me.

But seeing Stonehenge was well worth the lack of sleep. We stopped there after lunch in a little 'carvery'/pub on our drive to Devon. Those stacked stones are amazing. Hard to conceive of the work that it took to move and stack those monumental stones all done by hand with primitive tools and no modern equipment. Remarkable feats of engineering, especially to have been done hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Leaving a lot of the construction to be wondered at, pondered on, with little in the way of facts for explanation. Some of the stones are more or less local, while some came from Wales, hundreds of miles away. There are a number of burial mounds in the area, that do provide some details for greater understanding of the people and customs, but still leaving lots more questions than answers.