Day 6 Sunday August 1, 2021 The temperature today is really nice 70's in the morning and low 80's in the afternoon so that makes for a much more pleasant experience for sitting outside to read, etc. I checked the temperature back home and it is 12 degrees hotter. But it is really dry here. They haven't had any rain for awhile and most of the lawns and farm land is really dry turning brown. The gravel streets in the campground are dry and dusty. I had the Jeep and motorhome clean and shinny when we left home but they are dusty now.
We decided to be lazy today and not do much exploring. Later in the afternoon we took a mile hike around the field beside the fishing pond.
The caverns were discovered by two young boys in 1879 while they were chasing a rabbit. The rabbit disappeared down a hole and when the boys rolled back some rocks they felt cold air coming up out of the hole they had exposed. They went home, got some candles and entered the hole and discovered the caverns. Summer said they do not know how far back the caverns go. They know they go at least 6.5 miles because someone crawled that far into the caverns to explore them. She explained that it takes 100 years for the stalagmites/stalagmites to grow one inch. One of the rocks looked like Santa's sleigh and the overhead in some areas looked like upside down ice cream cones. Summer said that the two boys thought that some of the shapes on the roof of the caverns were the roots from their mothers garden.
We went through two different levels. There is a third level but they chose not to open it to the public because of the dangers. We had to backtrack in one section because the maintenance crew was working on some issues with the lights in that area. The guides turn on/off the lights in each section as we go through. If the lights are left on mold begins to grow on the formations. We were told not to touch anything except the hand rails and the rocks that the maintenance crews have put up for barriers. The oil from our skin damages the formations.
One of the little boys (about 3 years old) talked almost the entire time we were in the caverns and it made it difficult to hear everything Summer was saying and the boys mother didn't make any effort to keep the kid quite. UGG!!
The last section had a light show timed to music. It was a good tour and Summer did a good job.
We wanted something warm when we came out of the caverns so we drove to New Market to get a Latte at Jackson's Corner Coffee Shop. After we had been in there awhile three ladies (probably late 20's) came in and set across the room from us. You would have thought from the volume level of their talking they were outside at a park or something. And the one that was talking the most used the work “LIKE” about every third word. For some reason the repeated use of that word just grates on my nerves. Some people seem to think they are the only one in the universe.
So we finished our coffee and took a nice drive out through the countryside up in the hills. This is some really pretty country but right now it is so dry the pasture land and crops look bad. We came up on Paugh's Peach Orchard and stopped at their road side produce stand and got a half peck of peaches. The young man running the produce stand didn't have enough one dollar bills to make the correct change so he left the little building to go get some and left his cash register drawer pulled out with all his money exposed. I don't know if he didn't realize it or was just too trusting.
Day 8 Tuesday August 3, 2021 We drove about 15 miles toward Luray VA to tour Cooter's Museum. If you are our age or a little younger you might remember Dukes of Hazzard on TV. Cooter (Ben Jones) was the mechanic and wrecker operator on the show. He had a couple of the cars (The General Lee) from the show, the police car that Roscoe P. Coltrane drove and the Cadillac that Boss Hogg used in the show. Ben Jones served in the US House of Representatives from Virginia from 1989 to 1993 after the show went off the air and he plays music and CDs for sale and written several books. He has a small band and they play at the museum. There was a video playing with him and others from the show talking about behind the scenes stuff. There was no entry fee but he had a gift shop selling caps, shirts and other thing for souvenirs.
We drove through the small town of Luray and returned to New Market and stopped at the Southern Kitchen Restaurant for lunch before returning to the campground.
Day 9 Wednesday August 4, 2021 Today was basically a lazy day. We stayed in the campground, I did a few things around the motorhome, I got some paperwork caught up and Lena washed clothes. Other than that we relaxed did some reading, and being lazy. Still no rain lots of dust but the temperature is nice, low 80's during the day and upper 60's low 70's at night.
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