Last weekend I had a chance to visit the Shenandoah National Park. As national parks go, the Shenandoah is a major disappointment. I will admit that the Skyline drive is interesting, and I am sure come autumn this place will be bursting with color, but for late March the Shenandoah simply fails to impress.
That said, I did have one highlight for the trip – the Luray Cavern. Located about 10 minutes off the Skyline drive in the town of Luray, Virginia, the Luray Cavern is the largest natural cavern on the east coast. A single ticket will set you back 21 dollars, but if you go to their website (www.luraycaverns.com) you can download a discount coupon entitling you to a 50 percent discount off the second adult ticket, which effectively brings the cost of admission down to 15.75 dollars per person.
Entry into the cavern is by means of a 1 hour guided tour, which runs once every 30 minutes. The guide is quite knowledgeable and friendly, but the jokes they said are just borderline stupid, and most failed to illicit even a chuckle from the audience. Technically speaking you are allowed to stay in the cavern for as long as you wish, but to conserve energy, the guide will switch off the lights as he moves from room to room, so you are advised to stay close to the pack lest you get stranded in the dark.
As for the cavern itself, it has some of most intricate and spectacular stone formations you will find on the east coast. The stunning formations, coupled with the scale of the caverns and the lighting, give the cavern an otherworldly ambience. Rather than trying to describe it in words, I will simply let the pictures do the talking.
The ticket also includes admission to the cavern’s vintage automobile collection (which I did not visit). After visiting the cavern, move onto nearby historic town of Luray for some down home cooking and quaint B&B, or if you prefer, take the highway back to Washington DC, which is less than 2 hours away.
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