Miles Driven: about 160
It's still raining outside this morning and it's supposed to continue raining for the next couple of days. Ideally, we would just keep driving south into the Carolinas where it's drier and get to Florida a little ahead of schedule, but in the hotel in Washington DC, A saw a brochure for a series of caverns in western Virginia and really wanted to go to them. I had already told her it was completely the wrong direction from where we wanted to go and she was being a good sport about it, but this morning I was changing my mind.
We were very fortunate to have a hotel room last night that was only 4 doors away from the washing machine. It takes a little longer to wash clothes doing only one load at a time, but I could leave the kids in the room and walk down the hall to switch the loads over, so I took advantage of the chance to do our second round of laundry here. By the next morning we still had a couple of loads to do so we had to hang out in the hotel lobby for about an hour after we checked out of our room. This gave me all the time I needed to make up my mind to go to the caverns for sure - now we just needed to figure out which one.
I can't really remember how we chose Luray Caverns. A had wanted to go to a place called Rainbow Caverns, and there were two different sites with 'rainbow' rooms, but we decided on Luray. The road to the caverns was a tiny two-lane highway through rural Virginia, where every other mile was a memorial site or battlefield location. Even though our brains were overflowing from the history we saw and learned in DC, I couldn't help but wonder as I looked out at the trees and fields what this area looked like 250 years ago. Had soldiers marched through that patch of trees over there? Had they taken cover behind that hill? How many soldiers lost their lives in this very spot? Virginia is so rich with history from the earliest days of the US, and it was fun to let my mind wander and think about all that had happened here.
On our way to Luray, we passed through the Shenandoah National Park, which was a beautiful road that went up over the mountain tops and down into the valley below. K was so excited that we drove right up into the clouds (some of the mountains are about 4000 ft high, and it was quite foggy up there). I loved taking this backcountry road after being on 80 and 95 for so long. The only downside is that there weren't many road signs (not ones that made sense to me at least), so we made many U-turns and educated guesses as we drove. Finally we ended up in the downtown Luray area and decided to stop at Hardee's (Carl's Jr) for lunch and a bathroom break. I looked at the attraction brochures they had there and saw one for a Safari Park that said you could feed the animals from your car. I handed it to K, who handed it to C, and they all were squealing and begging to go check it out. I was worried it might not be open in the rain, so I called the number and they said it would be open rain or shine. Looking at the map, I saw that it was actually on the way to Florida (well, the new way we were going now since we had gone west to the caverns instead of south). I told them I'd think about it and that possibly we could do it since we were still ahead of schedule to get to Orlando.
We finally found Luray Caverns and parked with the other 10 or so cars in the humongous parking lot. We bought our tickets and got in line for the next tour which was leaving in just a few minutes. The caverns were beautiful, but pretty much just looked like caverns. The girls had never been in a cave before so they were so excited by it, especially A. I was surprised to find out that Luray is actually the fourth biggest cavern in the country. Mammoth Caves is #1, Carlsbad is #2. She didn't say what #3 was, but if any of you know you can comment and let me know. :)
Above and below: stalactites reflected in the water
what they called "cave bacon"
But by far, the coolest thing in the cave was the Stalacpipe Organ. In a complicated process that took 36 years (!) to complete, a custom organ was built piece by piece down here in the caves. When the stalactites in this cave are tapped, they give off a resonating musical sound. When Leland Sprinkle experienced this with his son on a visit here, he was inspired to create a musical instrument from the stalactites in the cave. He was a mathmetician and electronics scientist at the Pentagon, so I guess he was the perfect guy for the job.
According to their website, it took three years just to find the right stalactites that would make all of the different notes needed to play the organ. When they were found (or created), a metal rod was inserted to keep them from 'growing' any further, which would change their tone. Then a mechanical hammer with a rubber tip was installed that would tap the stalactite to produce a musical note. Five miles of wiring were used to power all of the hammers.
All of this came together to make the world's largest musical instrument, a whopping 3.5 acres! Apparently there is only one man alive who knows how to play the organ and he is already 80 years old. I hope he teaches someone else how to play it before he dies. Thankfully, they also have three songs the organ can play by itself so we got to hear the music it makes. The song they played was A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. The notes echo throughout the entire cave area. It was an amazing thing to hear, for sure. It certainly brings new meaning to the words "if they keep quiet, the rocks will cry out!" (Luke 19:40)
The tour of the caverns ended with the Wishing Well, a naturally blue-green lake that was full of coins. They had a sign hanging above the pool that showed that each year they clean out the lake and donate the money to charity. In case you can't read it, it says that so far they have donated almost $900,000!
We spent a long time in the gift shop at the caverns. C found a cool bow and arrow set hand-carved out of wood and a pocket knife with a "C" on it. A and K both fell in love with little furry critters, an owl and a fox, respectively.
Our tickets to the caverns included free admission to the Car and Carriage Caravan Museum, so we decided we might as well check it out before we left. I wasn't expecting too much, but I was shocked when we walked inside and found a huge room completely packed with old cars. This was just one of four rows of cars in the museum.
Here are just a few of the cool cars they had in this museum:
1880 Sleigh (one-horse open, I'm sure ;)
1892 Benz (5HP, 1-cylinder)
1906 Cadillac
1914 Locomobile Model 48 - Gentlemen's Speedster (cost $5,100! in 1914) It had 48.6HP and could go 70mph with 6 cylinders
1914 Westcott
1912 Ford Truck Model "T"
1913 Stanley (Steamer)
1932 Rolls-Royce
1925 Rolls-Royce
1927 Mercedes Benz, 220HP, capable of 110mph!
1930 Cord
The museum was much more than I expected and although we didn't spend much time there, it was pretty neat to see.
I felt like we had enough time to stop and see the Virginia Safari Park tomorrow, so we drove just a little further to Lexington, Virginia to spend the night. Our hotel was up on top of a hill with a pretty view of the surrounding area. The sunset was especially nice up there, and the remote location gave C just the excuse she needed to practice using her bow and arrows a bit more.
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