Saturday, August 19, 2006

foam sweet foam

The Virginia State Police were cracking down on speeders yesterday and today. Fortunately for me, I drove 300-plus miles worth of I-81 on Thursday, the day before phase two of "Operation Air, Land and Speed." I heard about it on a WINC-AM newscast as I started heading south from Winchester.

Long distance driving wears me out. At least I had AM talk radio to keep me entertained most of the time. After a while I got restless and started looking for an exit to take. I chose exit 180 because of a sign for the Natural Bridge, "an ancient natural wonder in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley." It turns out that they wanted $12 to see it plus I would have had to hike from the visitor center. Obviously I blew that off. I didn't want to spend any money to see the Natural Bridge Wax Museum either, although the brochure photos of the factory tour were tempting. Thanks to the Internet, I have a pretty good idea of what I would have seen.

There's a much better offbeat attraction between the Interstate and the Natural Bridge. It's Foamhenge, a replica of Stonehenge made of foam instead of stone -- hence the name Foamhenge. One of the articles I read online said that Foamhenge was built to celebrate April Fool's Day in 2004.



I started smiling as soon as I saw the sign by the road. A marker at the bottom of the hill explains how Foamhenge was built. It's purpose is solely to make people happy. My favorite photo is the one showing Foamhenge appearing on the horizon as I walked up the hill.


As I got closer, it was possible to see that Foamhenge really is made of Styrofoam. The view looking away from Foamhenge is also fairly spectacular.

You can see that at least one chunk of foam has fallen off. Once I figured out how to operate the timer function on my camera, I was able to attempt some ridiculous poses just like everyone who goes there.

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2 Comments:

Blogger bean said...

what? there's a "foamhenge?" how did i not know about this? i must go there immediately. thanks for the tip, f.m.!

8/20/2006  
Anonymous Pam Mc said...

FOAMHENGE!!!! YAY!!! Thanx for the info and the great pics!

*waves at Bean*

8/20/2006  

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