Due to a perfect storm of zero scheduled activities for both adults and children for three days in a row at the tail end of spring break, Nick and I decided to head to the Shenandoah mountains with the kids. Putting the trip together inside the space of a few hours may be the best vacation planning we've ever done! We rented a lovely condo in the Wintergreen resort area for two nights. As an important aside, when we asked the kids at the end of the vacation what their favorite part of the vacation was, they both said "the condo." As one of the two adults who had to sleep on the pull-out sofa bed, I beg to differ.
We left on a Friday morning and headed west. Each child was allowed to choose what we listened to in 15 minute intervals. Maceo, refreshingly, always chose to listen to the Ramona books on Audible. Cassius, alas,
always chose four songs from the Lion King. Always. For three days. The Same Four Songs.
We intended to go to Luray Caverns before checking into our condo however, unbeknownst to us, Luray Caverns is quite the popular tourist venue and the line was just too long for us to justify waiting in in the rain so we continued on in the direction of our condo hoping other slightly less popular caverns would appear en route. And, they did! We detoured to the Grand Caverns, the longest set of caverns on the east coast. The boys were very enchanted upon entering the caverns though, over time, Maceo maintained a very endearing sense of awe and wonder while our youngest slid down a slippery slope of distraction and a compulsive need to talk while our guide was talking. And only when our guide was talking.
We walked through rooms called The Zoo and The Chapel to name a few. We saw curtains of limestone (above) and cave bacon - very thin, striated pieces of limestone curtain.
We even saw The Rainbow Room (below) though I can assure you that nature did not create those colored spotlights you see below.
Day One was a success! We arrived at the condo after the caverns trip and the boys promptly passed out from fatigue. The adults followed shortly thereafter.
Day Two. The impetus for this spontaneous three-day trip really centers around a Facebook posting from some friends of ours who have a son in Maceo's class. Last year, they visited Virginia Safari Park and the pictures they posted of their experience were fascinating to us. Animals poking their heads inside their car, feeding animals from their car, and having parakeets land on their son's head in this large aviary. We saw those pictures last year and said almost in unison, "We must go there!" So, day two involved a trip to Virginia Safari Park and allow me to say here that it did not disappoint.
We bought several buckets of food to offer the animals from our car as we wound our way through this 140+ acre park full of roaming llamas, alpacas, watusi (think large cow with ridiculously large, no - Large - horns), Japanese deer, goats, elk, Scottish highland cows, and more just really, really wanting to put their heads in our car and eat from the buckets we were holding on our laps. Nick's bucket was taken from him within the first 5 minutes by an aggressive bull. Oh, how we laughed. But, in full candor, it was a nervous laugh. And the boys were not comfortable with having their windows down yet. It took us about an hour to wind our way through the park at around 5 miles an hour. It had some magical moments in which we could almost forget we were in a car and this was a tourist attraction. The boys were truly delighted.
Check out this watusi!
After the car tour, we parked and explored the grounds on foot. We purchased food for the parakeets - birdseed dipped in honey on a popsicle stick - and entered the aviary and promptly were descended upon by hungry parakeets. Two landed on my hand right away and started eating (adorable!) and the boys nervously laughed as birds swooped down to eat from their hands, too.
In the spirit of feeding animals, we went next to the giraffe station where, for two obnoxiously priced pieces of romaine lettuce, we could give the giraffe a snack. Everyone in the family fed the giraffe and everyone was enchanted by its gentle manner, sweet, large eyes, and its sandpaper-rough black tongue.
Back to the condo for our second and final night in apparently the best condo on earth, though, I repeat, did I mention we slept on a pull-out sofa and that there were some creatures in the wall that scritch-scratched their way around in those walls most of the second night? We will never speak of this again.
Day Three. We check out of the boys newest favorite abode and decide to make one more sweep by Luray Caverns, though this time not to visit the caverns but rather to try out this three-tiered climbing structure that is not intended for the faint of heart. It consists of a built-in belay system in which you are permanently tethered to the structure at all times as you wind your way through various high balance elements. On a scale of fearless (10) and "Holy-shit-I'm-going-to-die-up-here!" (0), I'll fairly rate Maceo, Cassius and Nick as 10s and myself as a 1. The boys loved it, though, and it was wonderful to see them gaining confidence as they climbed higher and tested the more precarious elements in the structure.
As we drove home to the monotonous repetition of those damned Lion King songs, we just couldn't wait to be king! No, wait, I mean, we reflected on what a fun, spontaneous vacation we had, or, as Cassius would say, a vacation that wasn't "super dumb."
