The trip from New Market to Luray offers little in the way of commentary other than it took about a half hour or so. Pulling into the parking lot of the Caverns was easy--not a lot of folks about.

Entrance to Luray Caverns costs $16 per person, and includes admission to a classic car museum next door. The trip into the cavern is by guided tour, and takes roughly one hour. It is almost wheelchair accessible, for the ramps are wide and flat, however, the initial descent is down a fairly long flight of stairs.

The photos do little justice to the magnificence of the caverns. Sights like thee are common throughout the path.

I am not a spelunker, nor have I ever visited a cave or cavern. I came away in awe of the various colorful stalagtites and stalagmites that make the cave so unearthly. Having taken millions of years to form, they offer natural beauty almost beyond description. For starters, stalagtites hangs form the ceiling. Stalagmites are the pillars on the floor. All of these are cunningly lighted by cleverly placed fixtures.

The path meanders around the various formations, each more impressive than the previous. The tour guide chatters on about a couple of guys discovered the entranceway in 1878, and immediately started to open it up as a tourist attraction. The railroads offered excursions, and the Caverns became quite the destination in theearly part of the 1900s.

One of the most impressive places is where a small, shallow lake developed, in which the ceiling stalagtites reflect off the water to give the appearance of a deep hole with stalagmites. This is truly spectacular, and you'll never get claustrophobic--plenty of space and light.

The water reflects the ceiling image. The "lake" is but a few inches deep in most spots.

As the path spirals downward, the stopping spots become larger and larger, until you reach a point rather deep in the Cavern that allows our entire tour group of 30 or so people to stand around with considerable elbow space. This is also the point where weddings and such take place.

There's an organ in place, but instead of pipes, it connects to dozens of small rubber-tipped pistons. WHen you press the keys, the pistons strike the side of stalagtites and stalagmites, producing a tone. String a bunch of them in the right order, and you have music. During our tour, no organist appeared, but a canned song played. If you've ever listened to a bell choir, you understand the type of sound. Our guide demonstrated the process by whacking a nearby stalagtite with a mallet. The tone was the same as if he had struck a key on a xylaphone.

Another water shot.

For grins, the guide turned off all the lights to show wat pitch blackness was. In our society of streetlights, LCD clocks, and the occasional moon, it's rare we ever get a complete absence of light. I experienced this "turn off the lights" ploy a decade ago while touring a coal mine in Nova Scotia. In any case, the 5 seconds were indeed a scene of complete and utter darkness.

And with that, we climbed up the stairs and entered back into the gift shop.

Which way is up? The correct orientation...I believe.

Car Museum

The museum offers roughly 140 items, including costumes, license plates, and other automative bric a brac. It's a pleasant 15-20 minutes or so of walkthrough, perhaps a lot longer if you enjoy old cars, mostly from the 1900-1940 era. If I recall correctly, there weren't many from after that, if any. It's not as extensive as the other car museum we visited in Sarasota, FL, but it is worth visiting, even if only to see the evolution of design and technology. Garden Maze

The real hit of the spot, for me, was the Garden Maze adjacent to the car museum. Sitting on one acre and measuring a path of half mile in length (assuming you navigate it immediately, which is a virtual impossibility), this is a real treat. It costs $5 and is well worth it.

The maze is created of 1500 American Arborvitae standing about 8 feet tall. You can, indeed, peer through them, but that does not necessarily help you discover how to navigate through the maze. The object is to reach all four stations, ink a paper, and then get out. It is certainly possible to do the stations out of order, though I suspect you are supposed to do them in order.

It is a delight to try and solve. Well, I suppose you have to want to be puzzled. Some little kid about 8 or so panicked when she became separated from her mom, and started screaming bloody murder, running to and fro. And in this maze, one false turn and you can lose people. Parents! Don't let the little ones run wild--it's annoying to the other patrons. Duct tape and rope were invented for a reason.

Halfway through is an overlook, and in the middle sits a fountain. On one corner is a fake cave with parallel paths--cool cutaways.

We were rolling along through the first three ink stamp stations, although we found number 2 first, then number 1 and 3. We found the cave, overlook, and fountain. And then, we ran into problems with ink stamp station 4. At one point, we could see the station on the other side of the hedge, but we ran round in circles trying to figure outthe pathway there. We even backtracked to the overlook to see if that would help (it didn't). In the end, we found the way, but if you ask me, I don't know how we managed to miss the path so many times. It seemed as if we had gone that way many times before.

Ah well, we made our way out. No, you don't get a prize for getting all four stamps. I did buy a postcard of an aerial view. The entire trip through the maze took us about 45 minutes.

The owner is thinking of adding a mirror maze to the property. This is only the third maze I've ever been through. The first was a mirror maze on the boardwalk on the NJ shore, the second was at a Renaissance Fair, and then this was the third. I think it great fun.

Conclusion

And with that, the time being about 5pm, we headed back to NJ, about a 5 hour drive away. It was an excellent couple of weeks, from the Borodino Napoleonic Conference to all the historic and natural sites around Virginia. Sure, we only scratched the surface, but we covered a considerable amount of ground in a short period.

I hope you have enjoyed this travelogue and recap as much as I enjoyed traveling it. I also hope that it provides some ideas of places to visit and not to visit. Travel, like reading, broadens the mind with knowledge, and knowledge--and a little fun in the process--is exactly what we all need.

Maze Postcard

I don't think I'm giving away any secrets...mostly because the route can be changed by opening and closing a few doors.

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