Have you been to the Luray Caverns? Will you please tell and include the following information?

1.) Luray Caverns

2.) Shenandoh Valley

3.) Retreat in the Blue Ridge

4.) scientific oddity

5.) geologic riches

6.) stalacites and stalagmitesHave you been to the Luray Caverns? Will you please tell and include the following information?
When Stanley told me that he had booked a weekend for the two of us at the (3)retreat in the Blue Ridge, named after the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains on the outskirts of Virginia, I thought it would be a weekend of chilling out, getting massages, sitting in the hot tub while sipping frilly colorful drinks that are accompanied by a tiny paper umbrella.



Little did I know that he had planned a day of spelunking for us, with the full intention of cave-diving to check out the (5)geological riches of the (1)Luray Caverns.



Luray Caverns are a large, celebrated commercial cave just west of Luray, Virginia, USA, which has drawn many visitors since its discovery in 1878. The underground cavern system is generously adorned with speleothems (columns, mud flows, (6)stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, mirrored pools, etc).

(4)Scientific oddities have never seized to amaze my geeky boyfriend, though to be fair, as soon as I saw the brochure on them, I was intrigued.



We hired a tour guide that drove us across the (2)Shenandoh Valley in his jeep.



We made a couple of stops in two different museums before reaching our final destination.

One was the Car %26amp; Carriage Caravan Museum - 140 transportation exhibits including cars, carriages, coaches and costumes. Authentically restored vehicles: 1892 Benz, a Connestoga Wagon, 1908 Baker Electric, 1913 Stanley Steamer, Rudolph Valentino's 1925 Rolls Royce.



The other one was the Frontier Culture Museum - Living history of pre-immigration Europe and pre-Civil War Shenandoah Valley. Features four farms — 17th-, 18th- and 19th-century European and American — and a working 18th-century blacksmith forge. Museum Store offers crafts and exclusive Moss Irish pottery.



Definetely worth seing, and by the time we got back in the jeep I was more than eager to dive into those famous caves.



*Author's note: This was way before I watched the movie, Descent.*



As we parked the jeep and started gathering our gear to go in, our tour guide started telling us more about the Luray Caverns.



We learned that, The Caverns are situated in the Shenandoah Valley just to the east of the Allegheny Range of the Appalachian Mountains. The Valley extends from the Blue Ridge in the north to the Massanutten Mountains in the south. Cave Hill, 927 feet above sea level, had long been an object of local interest on account of its pits and oval hollows or sinkholes (known as karst) through one of which the discoverers of Luray Caverns entered.



Luray Caverns does not date beyond the Tertiary period, though carved from the Silurian limestone. At some period, niches and already formed chambers were completely filled with water, highly charged with acid, which then slowly began to eat away at much of the softer material composing much of the walls, ceilings and floors. One particular area that shows this high level of water is Elfin Ramble where water marks of oscillation are highly visible on the ceiling.



The temperature inside the caverns is uniformly 54°F, comparable to that of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.



As with other limestone or “solution” caves, formations at Luray Caverns result from a solution of calcium carbonate giving up some of its carbon dioxide, thus allowing a precipitation of lime to form. This precipitation begins as a thin deposit ring of crystallized calcite, but continues to collect, creating stalactites and other types of dripstone and flowstone. Formations at Luray Caverns are white in color if the calcium carbonate is in its pure form. Other colors reflect impurities in the calcite resulting from elements absorbed from the soil or rock layers: reds and yellows due to iron and iron-stained clays; black from manganese dioxide; blues and greens from solutions of copper compounds. Luray Caverns remains an active cave where new formation deposits accumulate at the rate of about one cubic inch every 120 years.



The stalactitic display exceeds that of any other cavern known. The old material is yellow, brown or red; and, its wavy surface often shows layers like the gnarled grain of costly woods. The new stalactites growing from the old, and made of hard carbonates that had already once been used, are usually white as snow though often pink or amber-colored. The Empress Column is a stalagmite 35 feet high, rose-colored, and elaborately draped. The Double Column, named from Professors Henry and Baird, is made of two fluted pillars side by side, the one 25 ft the other 60 feet high, a mass of snowy alabaster. Several stalactites in Giant's Hall exceed 5 feet in length. The smaller pendants are innumerable; in the canopy above the Imperial Spring it is estimated that 40,000 are visible at once.



The cascades are formations like foaming cataracts caught in mid-air and transformed into milk-white or amber alabaster. Brands Cascade, the finest of all, is 40 feet high and 30 feet wide, and is an unsullied and wax-like white, each ripple and braided nil seeming to have been polished.



Draperies are abundant throughout the cavern and one of the most spectacular examples of such is Saracen's Tent. The drapery formation can be found in all major rooms and fill the cavern with tones like tolling bells when struck heavily by the hand. Their origin and also that of certain so-called scarfs and blankets is from carbonates deposited by water trickling down a sloping and corrugated surface. Sixteen of these alabaster scarfs hang side by side in Hoveys Balcony, three white and fine as crape shawls, thirteen striated like agate with every possible shade of brown.



Some formations are perfectly translucent. Down the edge of each a tiny nil glistens like silver, and this is the ever-plying shuttle that weaves the fairy fabric.



Streams and true springs are absent, but there are hundreds of basins, varying from 1 to 50 feet in diameter, and from 6 inches to 15 feet in depth. The water in them is exquisitely pure except as it is impregnated by the carbonate of lime, which often forms concretions, called pearls, eggs, and snowballs, according to their size. On the fracture these spherical growths are found to be radiated in structure.



Calcite crystals, drusy, feathery or fern-like, line the sides and bottom of every water-filled cavity, and indeed constitute the substance of which they are made. Variations of level at different periods are marked by rings, ridges and ruffled margins. These are strongly marked about Broaddus Lake and the curved ramparts of the Castles on the Rhine. Here also are polished stalagmites, a rich buff slashed with white, and others, like huge mushrooms, with a velvety coat of red, purple or olive-tinted crystals. In some of the smaller basins it sometimes happens that, when the excess of carbonic acid escapes rapidly, there is formed, besides the crystal bed below, a film above, shot like a sheet of ice across the surface. One pool 12 feet wide is thus covered so as to show but a third of its surface.



Stanley looked absolutely like a kid in a candy store and I certainly wouldn't have traded that informative and exhilirating day, for a day of spa in anyway.



However as we were walking towards the jeep following our guide at the end of the day to take us back to our retreat, Stanley was grinning from ear to ear like a lunatic. As he leaned over to me and whispered, "Now, wait till you see the surprise I have for you back in our bungalow".



When we did arrive tired, dirty, sore but happy, I opened the door to find our entire bungalow limunated in the soft and seductive light of dozens of candles. To my delight, there were rose petals everywhere and some soothing nature sound was coming out of the stereo.



Just when I whirled around to fling my arms around Stan's neck, I saw two resort employees patiently waiting for us just outside holding towels and foldable massage chairs.



Yesss!!! He had ordered a couple's massage for us, that evening. The rest of the weekend whizzed by in a bliss, however I can't help but emphasize the importance of taking a weekend off with your significant other to a mountain retreat and enjoying the wonders of it. It just does magic on a relationship.

THE END
While driving through the Blue Ridge Mountains, I went off the parkway and stopped at the Luray Caverns to see what was there. It cost too much and I had seen all of the scientific oddities and geological riches at other caves for nothing. Just being around the caverns we were besieged with stalagtitles and stalagmites and it was all we could do to swat them off. worse than deer flies.Have you been to the Luray Caverns? Will you please tell and include the following information?
Dodge City, Kansas

Circa 1876



"Luray Caverns"



After Festus returned from his trip to "Louziana," he was sitting with his old friends, Matt,Doc and Kitty, in the Long Branch Saloon.

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Doc:"It boggles the imagination that you even FOUND the state !!"

Festus:"What's so amazin' 'bout that, ya old scutter?!"

Doc:"For the mere fact you are such a (4.) scientific oddity !!

All mouth....No brains." Everyone laughed.

Festus:"Scutter.......But ya know. What I REALLY want to see are them (1.) Luray Caverns. I hear tell they are like something from another world."

Doc:"And you would know about another world, would you?" More laughter.

Matt:"Well, you know Sunshine is from Virginia, Festus. Maybe she's been there."

Kitty: "Been there? She was probably born and raised in a cave!!"

Matt glared at her...."Tell you what, Festus. Why don't you join us for dinner tonight. "

Doc:"We have finally hit upon something he REALLY knows!! Getting free meals!"



Sunshine was only too happy to have Festus as a dinner guest. After she had cleared the table, they went for a walk down to the lake.

Festus:"Shore is purty here, Miss Sunshine."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/93097492@N0…

Sunshine:"Thank you, Festus. Talk about pretty.....The (2.) Shenandoh Valley is beautiful.

My husband and I once went to a (3.) Retreat in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was like being in heaven."

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Matt put his hand on her shoulder........ "That's the way I feel about this farm." Sunshine smiled up at him , and kissed his hand.

Sunshine:" There is this amazing Stacpipe Organ in the cavern. It's a real musical instrument....Called a lithophone."

Festus:"How in tarnation did they get an organ down there?"

Sunshine smiled........It's not the kind of organ you see in church. It's comprised of (6) stalacites and stalagmites.....rock formations..... And when they are tapped , they produce music.....Much like the sound of a xylophone or bells."

Festus was mesmerized......."I hear tell there are (5.) geologic riches. Does that mean there's money in them caves?"

Sunshine smiled....."The riches are not monetary, Festus. Some things are just impossible to put a pricetag on."

She smiled at Matt and squeezed his hand.



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