Still in September with our German Friends!

Some pictures from our trip to Luray Caverns, about an hour north of us. They were incredible and amazing. From the brochure, a quote from the Smithsonian, July 1880 "...it is safe to say that there is probably no other cave in the world more competely and profusely decorated with statactite and stlagmite ornamentation than that of Luray." I can easily imagine this to be true.


Aaron getting a ride from Hannah. What a nice big sister.




A view looking down from one level to a lower level, some of the rooms were more than 100 feet tall!

The colors inside ranged from greys, creams, oranges, rust and pure white.

This formation is called Saracen's Tent and is known as a drapery structure. You can see Lauren and our friend Silke in the picture and how large it is and it's white, just beautiful. Some of the folds are so thin you can see through them.

A view of the Titania's Veil another beautiful, large white structure. Even though it is rock, it looks like it is just going to flow right over you.

Just some of the many stalactites, ranging from paper thin to thick.

There is an underground lake, called Dream Lake. So what your seeing is a perfect reflection of the ceiling made on the shallow and still lake. This was one of my favorite spots. Just amazingly beautiful and such a trick of the eye because the water was so clear and still. It looked like a mini cityscape or something from another planet.

The beginnings of some stalagmites, but they call these fried eggs : )

And nearby the bacon to go with them. The coloring and hanging did kinda make it look like slabs of bacon in a butcher shop. You can see how thin some of the stalagmites are with the light showing through.

Us with our tour group. Gives you an idea of how tall the spaces were and large the formations.

A pillar that has formed as the stalactites meet the stalagmites.

This was an organ made in 1954 after 3 years of tinkering by a man who was a mathmetician and an electrical engineer at the Pentagon. He went through the entire 3.5 acres of caverns to find stalactites that perfectly match musical pitches when hit by a rubber mallet. The organ can be played manually or automated, which is what they did during the tour. Who knew a rock could sound so good.

Just a fun picture of Aaron, from that day. We have many, many more pictures of the cavern. It was a fun day trip with some spectacular cavern views.