The Beardicle And The Beardless Go A Cavin'

October 11, 2013

Friday, our last full day in Virginia. Tomorrow we'll head back to Georgia, but not today! Today we head to the Virginia mountains and explore some caves. Of course, no one can go cave exploring on an empty stomach. Therefore, we met Juliette for breakfast at the regular time, and were welcomed with pears covered in raspberries. Jason also accepted cranberry-grape juice from Juliette, where I simply followed my regular hot tea with two lumps of sugar. I can say things like that because a British woman was serving the tea and food. After finishing the fruit, Juliette brought us some broccoli-cheese quiche, sausage links, and toast with her homemade wine jelly. Looking forward to trying the wine jelly at home, since we bought a jar from her a few days ago! Yum! During breakfast, Juliette told us that we had been a challenge for her. Apparently, most of her guests stay only 2-3 nights, so she usually just prepares three breakfast dishes. Since we stayed 6 nights, she had to create more dishes than usual. Luckily, she didn't seem to mind. She's an excellent cook and did really well. We informed her we wouldn't be eating breakfast tomorrow since we were going to be leaving before breakfast hours to return to Georgia. She said she's leave us some milk in the refrigerator in case we wanted a quick bowl of homemade granola before we left. She also encouraged us to take some fruit from her fruit bowl by the window as well. We thanked her. She told us to just leave the bedroom door key in the door on our way out, and had us sign a receipt. We thanked her and told her she had been wonderful.

Just as we finished eating, the new couple that arrived yesterday came down for breakfast. To avoid being rude, we said hello and asked where they were from. They apparently are from West Virginia and were simply stopping through to visit Monticello. We told them it was beautiful and wished them a safe trip. Jason and I then went upstairs and planned our day. We packed up our things and headed out for Luray Caverns. It was exactly an hour away. I love driving around in Virginia. While driving, Jason and I kept humming the tune that Abed and Troy sing in their morning news program on the show Community. We always can somehow have fun together, even in the moments where you can't really do much. However, even when driving you can still sightsee. It's so mountainous here and the farmland is just beautiful! Both Jason and I agree that we would love to move here one day. The weather is lovely, the people are nice, and it's just beautiful! Once we arrived at Luray, we bought our tickets and waited for the tour to start. It was a misty day, still trying to rain, so we staid inside and browsed the shop.

Once they announced the tour was about to start, we formed a line at the entrance so they could scan our tickets. After doing so, we headed down some stairs and waited for everyone else to join us. We waited in a large room surrounded by stalagmites (the ones coming from the ground) and stalactites (the ones from the ceiling). Here is a picture of that room:

Once everyone arrived, a young woman began to give us instructions. Both Jason and I were having trouble actually listening to her words because we were distracted by how robotic she sounded. It was as though we were listening to our GPS guide us through the caverns. She added weird inflections when she spoke, without any emotion, and paused in random spots. "Here...we have... the STALAC....tites! To..our...left... there is a formAtion that is 700.......MILLION... years old." Hard to write it exactly out how she spoke, but, like I said, just go listen to a GPS and you'll get it. It became funnier and funnier the farther we went into the cave.

Here are some things we saw:

 The fish market (looks like fish hanging down in a row).

 Just a bunch of them. Looks like a giant face of a man with a very large and long nose.

 More just random pictures of inside the cave.

 This is called dream lake. The lake on the bottom of this picture is only 18 inches deep, but the reflection makes it look so much larger! It's so pretty!

 Here we have Pluto's ghost. They called it this because it apparently looked like a ghost to the first people who discovered the cave. They weren't able to have flashlights, just candles and found themselves believing it was a ghost due to the size and the way it appears to be cloaked.

 This is what they call Skeleton gorge. It's the giant stalagmite on the right. Apparently they found some bones from an Native American girl. They didn't find all her bones, just some. They believe she was buried in the ground above, but due to the cold and rainy weather, her bones were pushed lower into the earth and some fell into the cave. They found her bones by the stalagmite on the right. We walked right past it... kinda creepy.

 Picture of me and the stuff behind me... couldn't get it to work at the same time.

 Picture of Jason and the stuff behind Jason, still couldn't get it to work right.

 This is the flying camel. I was at a bad viewing spot, so it's not the best but it does look like a camel in the sky.

 This is the shaggy dog. As you can tell, the top left looks like the head of a dog and you can follow it's back across the top. There also appear to be two large feet that go down to the floor. Pretty cool. This was massive.

 Just thought this was pretty.

 This is what National Geographic calls the best example of drapes in the world. They are actually called Saracens Tent. It really looks like someone folded curtains . . . very large curtains.

 This is apart of the curtains above. I took this picture because they placed a light behind it, making it look like a decorative towel that was hanging. It's apparently only 1/8th inches thick due to the water that drips down. Really does look like curtains... very cool.

 This is what they call "The Fallen Stalactite." They call it this because... you can obviously see it fell. It fell 7 thousand years ago from some earth disturbance. Still in tact because it was cushioned by mud and water when it fell. It's huge!

 They call this the Virginia Bacon. It's the part with the light shinning behind it. They call it this mainly to go with another stalactite in the cave that they say looks like scrambled eggs.

 This is the Giant's Hall. They call it this because it is the deepest part of the cave, 164 feet deep. There are also two giant stalagmites and stalactites (in the middle of the picture) here. They call these two the Bride and Groom due to how many weddings they have here.

 This is the Moose. Looks like a moose, if you couldn't see it.

 Next we listened to the coolest "rock music" ever, as our tour guide said in a flat voice. It was actually amazing! They have hooked up an organ in the room and each key is attached to a stalactite with wires, like the ones shown in the picture below...

 Once the key is pressed, it causes the wires to move that round thing on top and hit the stalactites, creating a sound like an organ would make. They played us a song... it was beautiful!

 More of Pluto's ghost, up close.

 This is the Wishing Well. It appears green, not because the water is green, but because the pennies that everyone throws in for wish-making has turned the stalagmites green. We threw in a penny and a nickel. I wished for something and Jason said wishes aren't real. He's wrong and admitted it, but then he said they are real but just pointless. He's wrong about that too, he just doesn't know that yet.

 This is a picture of what they call... the Beardicle and the Beardless," according to Jason.

 Fried eggs. They call it this because it looks like that. It apparently formed due to some stalactites falling over. We thought they were going to be huge, but they were literally the size of eggs. Disappointment.

After we left the caves, we worked our way through zillions of children to leave the store...we have decided the kids here don't ever go to school... instead they are on field trips every day. Once we left, we headed over to the museum and then the car exhibit. Below are the cars we saw. I know nothing of cars, so just enjoy the pictures:

 car

 car

 car

 black car.

After visiting all we could, Jason and I decided to quickly find a place to eat... we were super hungry. We drove for quite a while until we finally saw something open. Things here don't open like normal places. We parked and then walked down the sidewalk of this small main street until  we found a restaurant called Kathy's. This is not the same place as last night's dinner. Here's a picture of us eating, cause that's how we roll.

After eating, Jason and I walked down the street to an "antique" store. There were no antiques in there at all, but it had a lot of super cute fall decorations. We didn't get anything but it gave me a lot of fun ideas of some fall projects I can do, like make a wooden pumpkin or a scarecrow or make ghost pillow. Should be fun! After browsing a little, we headed back toward Staunton.

Once back at the Inn Jason and I decided to relax a little and just read reddit. Okay, well, Jason read reddit and I napped cause I can always fall asleep at the drop of a hat and Jason can always reddit. After relaxing a bit, we started looking up places for dinner and what else we'd like to do for our last night here. We decided to head toward the oldest church in Staunton to sightsee. I took a picture of it yesterday, just in case it was raining and we'd miss it. Today, however, we got to actually go inside. Or rather, we went inside the fence to look through the church grounds. Apparently, the church was established in 1746. Jason said he had read that they buried so many people in the churchyard that they could dig a grave without striking and old one, so that's when they made Thornrose Cemetery across the street from the cottage. It's truly a lovely church. Here are some pictures of the church and the graves:

 Yes, that does say 1794.

After visiting the church we decided to walk down to the Clock Tower for dinner. I posted a picture of the restaurant before, but didn't note it. Here is another picture of it. The restaurant is, of course, right underneath the building with the clock:

 When we walked in, a British man (who looked very similar to Ricky Gervais) showed us to our table and then introduced himself as our waiter. Jason ordered a flight of beer and then we both also got waters. The waiter took a long time with his ID because Jason always looks so young and we were from out of town. He finally agreed he was old enough and took Jason's order. Jason got the following: Rogue Dead Guy Ale, Apocalypse Ale sixth seal, Spaten Oktoberfest, and a fourth he can't remember the name of. After he brought our drinks, we ordered our food. Jason got spinach and artichoke panini and I got a half order of the chicken Parmesan with a cup of beef and barley soup. Here is a picture:

Jason and I had the best time at dinner. We laughed so much and really enjoyed the food. The waiter was also super kind and really awesome to listen to since he was British. We talked about our trip, the zoo, the crazy llama, and all the amazing vacations we've been fortunate to have. We also had a fun conversation about me one day being a "right, proper housewife." Haha. Apparently to be a right proper housewife I will also have to train our cats to ring a bell when dinner is ready and have the other one bring slippers and food! Haha! Never boring with Jason. After Dinner we walked over to the Split Banana again for gelato. Here is a picture:

 Mine is the left one and Jason's the right. I got chocolate and coconut and Jason got cinnamon and Virginia peanut butter. Both were very good. We let the other taste what we got... so good! Below is a picture of the ice cream shop:

You can't see it but to the right of the door was a piano that said "play something nice," and there was actually a Split Banana worker who was playing classical music. He was really talented! We had a great time! After ice cream, we walked through downtown and headed toward the Inn. On the way up the street we heard a group of random Asian kids who said "Nachos, nachos, nachos, nachos, nachos" about a billion times with no explanation as to why. I assume they don't know English very well and that maybe they were discussing how the word Nachos seems very strange? Another strange American phrase we learned today, "Yuck nuts." Haha Jason and I laughed a lot! Now back at the Inn, we're finishing this blog post and enjoying the wine we got at the grocer the other day. It's been a wonderful trip. Sad to see it end. Tomorrow, the open road back to the Georgia hotlands. I'm so thankful for weeks like this and for an amazing man to share life with... both the rough moments and the wondrous ones! Three years and so many, many more!