Natural Bridge (from September)

Natural Bridge was a beautiful place, full of history and nature. The park sits on land that Thomas Jefferson purchased from King George III in 1774. It was a place that he once had a log cabin on and went to for solitude. The land was surveyed for Thomas Jefferson, by George Washington and there are places where his initials and a surveyors cross are chiseled and can be seen today. That was really neat to see something that was carved into stone by one of our Founding Fathers!


The Bridge is about 90 feet long and 150ft to 50 feet wide. It is between 200ft and 300ft tall. The Cedar Creek runs under it. We walked a nice trail around the park, that followed the creek.

During the Revolutionary War, the Bridge was used to make lead bullets for the colonist to use against the British. They would drop molten lead from the top of the Bridge. Gravity and the distance traveled would shape the drops into spheres which would harden once they hit the cold water of the creek below.

The Creek is bordered by large clumping of wildflowers at the waters edge.

It was a really warm day, but fortuanately the trail is well shaded by many trees. Caleb was lucky enough to get to ride the whole way. He loved the higher view and his sisters hat.


Along the trail is a recreated Monocan indian village. There were historical actors in the village to answer questions and share information about the villiage. It was very interesting, one of the woman was a descendant of the Monocan tribes from this area. It was neat to hear her tell stories that had been passed down through her family about life long ago.

Playing a child's game with corn cobs, similar to darts.

Items they used to make and trade. The baskets are woven of pinestraw and reeds from the creek.

The flint maker. He showed how they made, tools, arrows, and cooking utensils from the wide variety of rocks and limestone in the area.

Traditional house, that would sleep 12-15 people around the fire pit.

My big girl taking a seat in the meeting house.

Our friends and Lauren and Hannah walking along. The girls had fun walking on the stone wall along the creek.

We saw quite a few critters, mostly of the insect kind - beautiful butterflies, this walking stick and also lizards, crayfish, frogs........

A blue tailed skink

a Walking stick and this guy hanging out in a tree. Can you see him? We saw this twice as well as seeing them in the water near the end of the trail.

Did you see the snake......wrapped around the branches.

This is the opening to the Lost River. It goes to an underground river, whose source is unknown. It was amazing because you could hear the water rushing from somewhere else, before arriving at this opening. And it smelled crisp and fresh, the water was quite cold and clear, which felt great on this hot day.

This is the opening to a saltpeter cave. The saltpeter from this cave was used during the War of 1812 and also during the Civil War to make gun powder.

The kids just had to dip their toes in the creek, the water was just too temptin.

I love this picture. Not sure what was so funny. But a testament that sometimes friendship can overcome the barriers of language.

The end of the trail. Behind us are the Lace Waterfalls, which drop 50 feet. Hard to get a complete picture because of all the lush trees.

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.

Part 3 Friends from Germany visit!!

We were so excited to have our friends from Germany come and visit us for three weeks, late August to September. We hadn't seen them for 7 years, the last time being when we went to Germany with a 4 yr old Hannah and a 9mth old Lauren. A lot had changed since then. I was hoping that the visit would go well for everyone, especially them, we're kinda used to our gang of four. It was wonderful, like we just picked up where we had left off.

Just a little background. We met Stefan and Silke out west almost 14 years ago. Ken and I were taking a vacation out west (New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah) and met them at a bed and breakfast along the way. They had a similar itinerary planned so we traveled together, staying at the same hotel or bed and breakfast. Exchanging information and parting ways at the end. Not knowing that we had just started a wonderful, long lasting, cross Atlantic friendship. We have been to see them and they have been here to visit us. We look forward to many more visits.

Since we haven't been in Virginia long, we explored lots of the many neat things around us with them. It was really fun to see all that there is to do here in the Shenandoah Valley. The next several post will be about our time with our friends.

They arrived at the beginning of apple season, so we went to a farm north of us and picked the first apples of the season. We also found out that the farm still had peach trees and raspberries to pick. All of it was tasty, but for me the peaches were just incredible. The farm we went to had a little general store where you could buy all types of apple products, syrups, fruit jams etc. They had some bakery items and we tried apple doughnuts which were quite yummy. They also had a playground so the kids could run around while we enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

the old farm house

the orchards

off to go pick

Aaron had fun picking too, though not always the best apples, he really liked the over ripe ones on the ground

I think Caleb might have thought the apple was a strange ball, he had fun but wasn't quite sure what to do with the apple, but the dirt, no problem, just dig

yummy raspberries

We found out that Caleb really likes raspberries, it was really evident at the end of the day by his red spotted clothes

The peaches were a huge hit, sweet and juicy, with great flavor!

Cleaning up at an old well pump

A great picture of our friends ~ kind with just a bit of silly.

Fun on the playground, and a bit of physics with weight distribution. Good thing Hannah has long legs

Whats better than a good roll down a nice grassy hill. Aaron got inspired and just started rolling, guess it looked too irresistable.

Enjoying apple doughnuts on the front porch of the general store.

Our take home loot. We enjoyed it all. I made a traditional American apple pie, a first for our friends. They really liked it, I ended up making another one. They shared a raspberry sauce recipe that they eat over ice cream, tasty too. A nice drive, great views, lots of yummy fruit and good memories.