luray caverns

Sunday morning after my run and our breakfast we went south once more this time to Luray Caverns in Luray (where else?) Virginia, which was part of our plan when we first decided to hit up the Shenandoah Valley. Matt had been once as a kid and thought I'd really like it. You know, the little girl who used to collect gem stones with her allowance money? That girl. Do you know how many tables I had to clean up after dinner in order to buy one teeny tiny piece of turquoise? Lots. I digress.

We had prepurchased tickets and knew we were to wear light coats but I wish we had thought to bring a stroller for Dom. When he decides he doesn’t want to walk well, you can imagine. The hero of the trip, this Dominic. This cave was discovered in the late 1800's, being the largest series of caverns in the east. Stalactites and stalagmites first seen by candlelight and all of that.

Anyways the caverns were awesome. The scale was so much bigger than I imagined and that is probably because the pictures I had seen before hand do not do it justice. The tours are an hour long and leave every twenty minutes. The guide was full of hokey little jokes that you can tell she has said about a million times before but still, appreciated. We got a history lesson as well as a geology lesson along the way too. She would use a flash light and point out different things like oh there is Cinderella’s Castle, our ice cream cone (Rocky Road har, har) or Pluto’s Ghost. Letty and David took turns taking photos of anything they saw fit, most of which are blurry messes. Dom went from Matt’s arms to mine and back again.

I think my favorite part was the dream pool. Which was just a reflecting pool that gave a mirror image of the ceiling. You’d never know there was water there!

Also of note was the organ that was hooked up to the stalactites (stalagmites?) and played a hymn. Some little nifty creation from the 50’s. No organ pipes necessary!