When we first moved from Japan to Mississippi, Suzannah’s mom and aunt drove down from New England to visit.  They talked about how they stopped at the Luray Caverns in Virginia and really enjoyed it.  We decided that since Suzannah loves caves and it was highly recommended, Luray Caverns needed to be a stop on our way to Maine.  While researching places to stay, we found that the caverns were also near the beautiful Shenandoah Valley.  Another bonus! With so many places to see in the area, finding a good, central place to stay was important.  The Harrisonburg/Shenandoah KOA was the spot for us.

Nice KOA

The Harrisonburg/Shenandoah KOA was our first KOA experience.  It cost just over $50 per night with our discount and it was completely worth it.  The campground is away from the interstate and offers peaceful surroundings, friendly staff, a large pool, and nice sites with plenty of shade. It has a well-stocked store with a great laundry room and super clean showers.  The KOA offers a small lake for fishing, hiking trails, horseshoes, and a nice playground with a tetherball, which Corbin absolutely loved. Overall, this was a great RV stay for us and after a quiet night’s sleep, we were ready for a full day of caverns!

Luray Caverns!

Luray Caverns was our first stop for the day and just a short drive from the KOA.  First discovered in 1878, Luray Caverns is the largest and most popular cavern in the eastern United States and is open every day of the year.  At over 4,000,000 years old, it is completely breathtaking.  The hour-long tour follows along one and a quarter miles of paved walkways taking you through this amazing natural wonder.  With stalactites, stalagmites, and every other cavern formation, you are transported into a time long past.  The tour guides highlight many special formations, some of which are lit up with white lights and some with many different colors.  There is even a strange organ near the bottom that the tour guides will play for you, producing a sound like nothing we’ve ever heard before.  Luray Caverns offers more than just caving though.

After our cavern tour we needed to warm up so we spent a little time having fun at Luray Caverns’ garden maze.  The maze, along with the Car & Carriage Caravan Museum, Luray Valley Museum and Toy Town Junction, are included with every Luray Caverns entrance ticket.  Corbin guided us through the maze and although we made many wrong turns, he found the exit in the end.  It was nice to warm up in the maze before heading out to the next cavern, Shenandoah Caverns.

Shenandoah Caverns

Discovered in 1884, the Shenandoah Caverns has a one-mile, one-hour tour through 17 beautiful rooms and passageways.  Unlike Luray Caverns, Shenandoah Caverns has gravel pathways and an elevator which leads to a variety of formations.  Our favorite was Rainbow Lake, named so for the beautiful colors reflected on the water.  There is also some pretty impressive cave bacon…not the kind you eat but the kind that takes thousands of years to form and fold into the shape of bacon.  Formations shaped like animals are highlighted by lights and you can experience total cave darkness…when the tour guide turns off all the lights while you are down deep in the cavern.  It’s very unnerving to think about a power outage down in the cavern!  

Cooter’s Place

Have you ever wanted to meet “the good ol’ boys”?  Cooter’s Place, near the Luray Caverns, is a Dukes of Hazzard fan’s paradise.  It features Daisy’s Diner, a museum, and fresh-baked pies!  The museum is free and houses a lot of memorabilia from the show.  If you want to, you can sit down, get comfortable, and watch Dukes of Hazzard episodes with other fans. You can take your picture with the General Lee or Boss Hogg’s car in Cooter’s Garage.  It has many cool cars including more versions of the cars from the show and more General Lee’s.  

Did you know that Cooter comes down on Saturdays to sing with his band and sign autographs?  Some of the other cast members visit on occasion as well.  If you can’t get the theme song out of your head, you can record your own version at the on-site recording studio. Loved this place!  It’s well worth the stop, if you’re a fan and a great way to end an amazing day in the Luray area.

Amazing Sunrise

The next day promised to be a good day to film a sunrise and we’d heard that the Shenandoah Valley has beautiful sunrises.  We woke up at 0345 and headed out to the Skyline Drive.  The 105-mile drive runs through the Shenandoah National Park and along the mountains.  There are a few different overlooks that offer the best views for photos and videos such as Tunnel Parking Overlook and Hazel Mountain Overlook.  We chose the Buck Hollow Overlook because there were no trees to interfere with the video.  We parked, set up our chairs, blankets, and coffee, and got the camera ready.  Chris set his camera to time-lapse and watched.  As the sun came up, you could see the amazing colors with Washington D.C. in the distance.  It was quite beautiful and the time-lapse was outstanding. 

Frontier Culture Museum

One thing that our family feels is important for Corbin to really experience history is to explore different types of museums.  Down the road from Luray is Staunton, Virginia, home to the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia.  This museum is an outdoor living history museum and we loved it.  It tells the story of the first immigrants to colonial America, where they came from and how they incorporated their values and cultures to create a new one here.  

The museum purchased traditional rural buildings overseas from the areas they represent, shipped them and reassembled them on site.  The buildings, along with historical re-enactors/tradesmen, contribute to the authenticity of the museum.  The museum, separated into Old World and America, has 10 areas to visit that represent different eras of American history from the 1600s through the 1850s.  

1600s English Farm

The first colonists in Virginia came from England in 1600s.  The 1600s English Farm has a traditional farmhouse and working garden and are great examples of how they lived.  The house, situated on a nice wooded lot, had the laundry and restroom a good distance away and a garden in the back. We learned about the different vegetables they grew in their garden, including barley and tobacco. We also had a lesson about beer, as all ages tended to drink beer or wine because the water wasn’t safe to drink. Oh, and they had lots of sheep, goats, cows and a whole family of ducks.

1700s Irish Forge & Farm

Corbin really enjoyed the Irish Forge because the blacksmiths were working and showed him how to make nails and hooks.  They used fire and a foot pumped bellows to heat the metal and then had a plethora of instruments to shape tools.  Most of the blacksmith’s work came not just from crafting new tools but from repairing or sharpening farming tools.  The blacksmiths forged everything from farming tools to kitchen pots and pans.  

The Irish Farm had a man who played the fiddle and taught us about music history.  He played examples of music from the different areas of Ireland, Scotland and Wales that influenced American music of the time.  While the tune may be similar, the beat was faster or slower depending on the meaning the musician wanted to get across or the area the musician was from.  Different beats and different areas created different dances. This was by far Suzannah’s favorite part of the museum.

1700s German Farm

With the beautiful music in our minds, we were off to the 1700s German Farm.  The Germans were the largest group of non-English speaking European folk that settled in the colonies.  German culture influenced the way buildings and barns were made and was prominent throughout colonial history.  There was a house with two barns and a farmer doing a scythe demonstration.  Corbin got to try his hand at “mowing the lawn” and found it quite challenging.  He said he couldn’t imagine having to mow the whole lawn much less a whole field with a scythe.

1700s Ganatastwi Village

A 1700s Ganatastwi Village is an excellent example of the Native Americans that were here before the colonists.  The village is representative of the Native American culture and not just a particular tribe.  While there aren’t any re-enactors in this village, different housing structures and farming techniques are brought to life here with their recreations.  It showed the struggles the Native Americans went through went the colonists arrived, bringing their different culture, land expansion and new diseases that they had to experience.  

American Farms

The last exhibits were American Farms from the 1700 and 1800s.  The 1740s farm was so small that it reminded us of the size of our trailer.  Our trailer is not that much bigger and had more to offer than the tiny farmhouse did.  Although, it would be nice to have a garden to grow our own food.  The 1820s and 1850s American Farms are on a large part of the museum’s grounds.  

The 1820s American Farm was rather large as typically many generations of families lived together in one homestead.  These households were well furnished, with many rooms and usually more than one floor.  While the men and boys worked in the fields, the women and daughters stayed near the house, working on creating goods by spinning or weaving that could be traded for goods.  

The 1850s American Farm showed how things had changed in 30 years with the expansion of not only farming and cooking equipment but also communication in the form of newspapers and books.  The schoolhouse really opened Corbin’s eyes about how his schooling could have been.  He also learned how children spent their time before the age of video games and televisions.  He played a version of baseball with the re-enactor children and chased the turkeys.  This museum was a great experience for us all.

Our Time in Luray Ends

The museum was the last stop on our Luray, Virginia tour.  We enjoyed our time there from the deep, dark caverns to the beautiful Shenandoah Valley and then the cultural museum.  Next, we’re off to Hershey, Pennsylvania and the Hershey’s Chocolate Factory!

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