The famous Dream Lake. (Photo by: Stephanie Gutierrez-Munguia)
The scenery when driving on route US-211 seems like it came out of a nature calendar. The sky is a clear blue contrasting to the evergreen Appalachian Mountains. It seems like yesterday that I passed these mountains in a minivan full of seven other people. It takes fifteen minutes to arrive at the familiar cobblestone buildings with the orange roofs. To the left of the main building, there’s a sign welcoming all visitors: “Luray Caverns, VA.”
Back in 2003, I remember being an 11-year-old girl looking at the main building in wonder.
“Mommy, where’s the cave? There’s only a building there,” 11-year-old me said.
“The caves is in that building, sweetie.”
I was shocked that a building can hold an enormous cave. Soon, I would find out that the caverns are underneath the building. Upon entering the building, there is a box office where I bought my ticket to go inside the caverns, but that ticket also gives me access to go the Garden Maze, Car and Carriage Caravan Museum, and the Luray Valley Museum.
Today, I stand 5 feet and 4 inches tall compared to my 4 feet tall 11-year-old self. When entering the caverns, I felt like I was 4 feet tall again. The cavern was filled with columns on top of columns of uniquely formed rocks. The cavern looked like an arctic cave with icicles and curtains. A voice echoes throughout the room and I go back to being 11 again, listening intently to the tour guide.
“Luray Caverns was first discovered on August 18, 1878 by a group of native Virginians. They dug away loose rocks for four hours until they found the entrance of a cave. Using only candles for light, they slid down and saw these marvelous rocks. Inside this cave, there are a series of stalactites and stalagmites, which are those rocks that you see that look like icicles and curtains. To your right, you can see a flag that says, “Discovered through point August 1878. That flag was placed by the discoverers and has been there since then. Shortly after the discovery, the caverns were open to the public and around half a million people from around the world has been visiting Luray Caverns to see one of nature’s wonders every year,” Tara Jewell, the tour guide, said.
Jewell then led my group throughout the caverns on a brick passageway. Every now and then, I can hear water dripping. The rivers and streams that were there a long time ago naturally created the route we were led on by Jewell. It was then that I remembered my favorite parts of the caverns: the Dream Lake and the Cathedral. It took us around three minutes to get to Dream Lake, which gives me an eerie, but peaceful feeling because of the mirror effect the water pertains. The mirror effect makes feel as if I’m seeing the cavern in 3-D glasses; you know it’s there and you can see the details so vividly, but yet you can’t touch it.
“Dream Lake covers roughly about 2,500 square feet area, but its deepest point is 18 inches deep. It actually doesn’t look 18 inches deep. It looks anywhere 6 to 10 feet depth just because it shows a perfect reflection of the ceiling,” Jewell said, her shoulder-length dirty blonde hair bouncing with every step she took along the lake. The reality of the lake is that the water reflects the stalactite/stalagmite ceiling of the cave.
Forty minutes into the tour, Jewell finally led us to my second favorite spot of the tour, which is the Cathedral, the home to the Great Stalacpipe Organ. When I was 11, the tour guide used the organ to play a song for us, but the sounds gave me shivers. My reaction has not changed since then.
“Once there were paved walkways, Mr. Leland W. Sprinkles, a mathematician and electronics scientist from Springfield, VA visited Luray Caverns and discovered that the stalactite surroundings that covers 3 ½ acres of the caverns produces symphonic sounds. It took him three years to finish his project, only finding 37 working notes. A four-keyboard console was then installed and soon the Great Stalacpipe Organ was born. The organ plays a variety of songs and today, you get to hear a live performance.” Jewell went behind the railing and pressed a button making the organ play. The sounds that were produced from the stalactites are pure, haunting, and yet dreamy. It resembles to the sounds that a xylophone makes, but instead of wood, it’s rock.
After the hour-long tour, Jewell led us back up the stairs that we came from and took us the cavern store, which sold rock figurines, Native Americans dream catchers, and other Luray Caverns souvenirs. When I was 11, my mother bought a figurine of two doves kissing that is made out of the cavern rocks, and that figurine always made me remember of the caverns and the wonders that it held.
I followed Jewell out of the store and asked her if they held any events featuring the caverns. She then proceeded to tell me about the Grand Illumination, which is the celebration of the anniversary of when the caverns were discovered. Employees replace the electrical lights throughout the caverns with light candles. Tour guides, such as Jewell, dress up in 1800s clothing and gives a candlelit tour. This event occurs every year on the Saturday closest to August 13, which is day the caverns were found.
Leaving the building that holds the cavern, I headed towards the building next door that has a sign “Cars and Carriage Caravan Museum.” As I walked through the museum, I could physically see the history of transportation dating from 1725 to 1941. Back when I was 11, the old-fashioned cars never caught my attention, but as an adult, I am easily fascinated to see the industrial changes that America has come through. The highlight of the exhibit is the 1892 Benz, one of the oldest cars in the country that is still in operating condition. There was the 1840 Conestoga Wagon, which reminded me of the wagons that were shown in movies about the Old West, and a 1925 Rolls Royce that was originally owned by Rudolph Valentino, a famous actor who was considered to be the first male sex symbol of the cinema during the silent era. The 1925 Rolls Royce reminded me of those cars that were used in mafia movies that were based in the 1920s. Apart from the caverns, the car museum was an attraction that heavily caught my interest and made me become a car geek.
Next door to the car museum is the Garden Maze, which is the newest addition to Luray Caverns. For centuries, mazes were created as form of entertainment and meditation. The maze was made of over 1,500 Dark American Arborvitae, eight feet tall and four feet wide that created a half-mile pathway that is covered with a misting fog. There was a mission card I received upon entering the maze. I needed to find four goal stands and at each goal stand, there is a stamp that I had to use to stamp the card. There was no actual prize once I found all the goals, but the exhilarating fun of going through the maze overrides that disappointment. It was unfortunate that the maze wasn’t created when I was 11.
Finally, I visited the Luray Valley Museum. The Luray Valley Museum was the second newest attraction in Luray Caverns after the Garden Maze. Celebrating the early Shenandoah Valley culture, the museum displayed artifacts that dated back from early Native Americans to the active 1920s. Behind the museum, there were three restored buildings: a men and night meeting hall that was once used as civil war hospital, a schoolhouse, and the forge, which was an old shed used by blacksmiths. When I visited, there was a blacksmith whose ancestors owned the forge that was restored. When I peeked inside the forge, the blacksmith had his back to the door, blowing on some iron that he just took of the heat. He then grabbed a hammer and started hitting the piece of iron, giving it a form. He put the iron back in the heat and started twisting it in a way that it looked like twisted nail. Fifteen minutes later, he brought the iron to me and showed me what he did: an iron garden pot hanger. The blacksmith told me how each piece of iron is a work of art and that you can find beauty in the most unexpected places, like a piece of iron.
Visiting Luray Caverns was an adventure and a break from reality for me. There are many people like me who visited the caverns when they were young and came back years and years later with their own families to show a piece of their childhood. As I drive back home, I pass the mountains once again, but this time, I pulled the car to the side of the road, got out, and leaned against my car. I watched a cloud slowly pass its way over the mountain and I’m 11 years old again, appreciating mother nature and her wonders.
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