Following the aborted camping trip that I’ve previously chronicled, we were left in the Shenandoah Valley for Memorial Day with no firm plans. A bit of googling gave us an ultimate destination in West Virginia, but we decided to embrace the journey and indulge in a handful of unusual attractions along the way.
Our first stop was Luray Caverns, which, if you’ve never been, truly are a natural wonder. If the idea of caves doesn’t exactly appeal to you, I urge you to swallow the impulse to pass on the opportunity should you be in the area. The scale of the place is staggering and the intricate detailing created by nature is astounding. Some elements of the experience fall more in the tourist trap column than the educational experience, but a visit is actually worth it for kids and adults alike. I managed to pick up a little geology knowledge along the way, probably because we were lucky enough to time our visit well and avoid being massed into a large group, despite the site being fairly crowded that day. If you’re totally hemmed in and unable to set your own pace, I can see how the experience might become a bit claustrophobic.
One warning: even if the line is long, make your party visit the bathroom as a precautionary measure before heading down into the cavern. There are no facilities underground and you are a long walk from the surface.
Our next stop, which we thought would be just to stretch our legs but ended up being much more impressive than we imagined was at American Celebration on Parade in Quicksburg, Va. We chose this museum, of retired parade floats over the adjacent caverns (the Shenandoah Valley is apparently more hollow than I realized!) and am I ever glad we did.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but a hanger-sized building animated monstrosities from Mardi Gras parades and presidential inauguration festivities was not it. The signs explaining how some floats had been altered to serve multiple themes over time were interesting, but hardly the main attraction. This was all about the color, the size the sheer spectacle. I’ve never seen anything like it and the kids were entranced — especially by the giant train and pirate ship.
Finally, as another break in the road trip, we took in Dinosaur Land, near Winchester, Va. The name says it all — large, in some cases life-sized, fiberglass dinosaurs in a variety of poses. Some are frozen in action — fighting, flying — others are solitary and without context. Some are older interpretations of how these animals looked, but others are updated to integrate modern paleontology. The real attraction here was the gift shop, which includes probably every dinosaur toy and trinket known to man. We came home with a stuffed T-Rex for Little Brother, a buddy he has named “Raaar” and, somewhat inexplicably, a plastic freight train for Big Brother.