Caverns and Crystals: Luray Caverns

 

Another stop that both Lady Hiva and I love nearby Washington, DC is Luray Caverns. The drive to Luray is beautiful and scenic. There are several other caverns along the way  that you could check out, but Luray is the largest. 

This stop gave us our science fix. We talked about how caves are created and how stalactites and stalagmites are created. There is also quite a bit of history that we can explore in the Toy Museum and Car Museum nearby. 

The sheer size of the cave is amazing! There is so much to see and explore, it is easy to forget to recognize the grandeur of nature. 

This is a mirror lake. it looks like stalactites and stalagmites, but it is really just a reflection of the stalactites hanging from the ceiling on still water. 

Look at how deep this cavern is! They have done a really great job of making the walking tour pass by some advantageous places. 

The stalactite organ is always a favorite. Lucky Dragon was so impressed by the way the vibrations of crystals make the noise. He wanted to go play the organ so bad. 

Below is "Pluto's Ghost." Named after the Roman version of the god of the underworld. You get to see it from several angles, but this was the most dramatic. We could see why they named it Pluto's Ghost now. 

There is a toy museum that covers from the 1800s until early 2000s. It was fun to explore the evolution of toys. Some of them were CREEPY!

The vehicle museum is PACKED FULL of some classic vehicles. I told Lady Hiva I can only imagine the millions of dollars of vehicles in the one building. Again, there were so many of them that you cannot really appreciate each of them. 

Across the street you can go into another museum of the "frontier." We saw how they bathed, dressed, ate, heated their homes etc. Of course the favorite of the kids to go "mining." After years of doing this at Cornbelly's in Utah, we were shocked at how many and how big the gems and rocks were in their bags! The kids were in heaven. They washed all their rocks and went through and found the names for each of them.