Visiting Luray Caverns

Back in October my family visited Luray caverns in northern Virginia. This was our first time visiting caverns. We've done a couple of mine tours over the years, but seeing something like this was quite interesting! 

I didn't really know what to expect, as I'd only ever seen a couple of pictures of the caverns, but we were really impressed!

There is a guided tour, but we opted for the self guided tour. You're given a brochure when you get there that has a numbered list and corresponding attraction that is easy to follow as you travel throughout the caverns. The brochure lists names and information about different parts of the caverns.

There is a lot to see with the multitude of different cave formations: stalagmites, stalactites, mirrored pools, etc. We spent probably at least an hour walking through the caverns.

One interesting fact was that Luray caverns is the site of the first air conditioned home in the US! A sanatorium was built in 1901 above the caverns, where the cool air from the cavern was directed inside of the building establishing it as the site of the first air conditioned home in the US!

This part of the cavern was Dream Lake. It was pretty neat (but also a little eerie!) to see such a perfectly still lake with such a perfect reflection. It reminded my sister and I of The Crystal Cave in Harry Potter where Harry and Dumbledore find the locket horcrux.

The lake is only about 20 inches at it's deepest part, although it appears much deeper because of the perfect reflection.

If you are interested in more information about Luray caverns, you can check out their website or the Wikipedia page.

Have you ever toured a cave or cavern?

Five for Friday

Hello and welcome to my Five for Friday! Today I am linking up with Andrea!

1. On Wednesday I talked about how one thing I wanted to do in 2020 was buy a bouquet of flowers each month, and I decided to continue that into 2021! So last week I picked up this bouquet at Trader Joe's!

2. Last Friday my mom and I decided to drive to Richmond (which is about an hour and a half from us) to do some shopping. There were a couple of places that we wanted to go to that aren't in our area. 

We wanted to go by Christmas Tree Shops, which, despite the name, is not all Christmas stuff. It's a discount home decor store that I hadn't heard of until I moved to Virginia (it looks like it's an east coast chain). We got a few Valentine's day decor items.

Another place we went to was Sugar Shack Donuts. Their donuts are so good, and despite how they might look, are not sweet. I can't stand Krispy Kreme because they are so overly sweet, but these are so light and fluffy that they are just delicious. 

The two on the bottom are gluten free, and unfortunately those weren't very good! I got them for my mom to try and they were so dense they were like fudge. Yuck! So, while the gluten free weren't great the other ones sure were!

3. Target has had some great stuff in their Dollar Spot lately! I picked up these rope baskets ($5 each) to put on top of my bookshelf and they work great! They're great quality and pretty sturdy which is nice, so I can put heavier things in them and not have them flop around.

They also had these heat pockets for your curling or flat iron. I don't know about you, but when I travel I always have an issue with what to do with my curling iron as I never have enough time to let it cool down completely before I have to shove it back into my bag, so I think these will come in handy! They were $3 each.

I mentioned in my last Five for Friday post that I had purchased a couple of these 5 minute story books, so when I saw there was a Star Wars one I had to buy it! Again, these are in the clearance section and ring up at only $3.98! (It is showing full price online.) And, if anyone cares, there is also this Star Wars book but the stories aren't very good.

4. I also wanted to share this cute embroidery project I did last month! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! 

5. In case you missed it, on Monday I shared A (almost) Year of Photo A Day - 2020, and then on Wednesday I shared A Year of Flowers (my monthly bouquets!).

Hope you have a great weekend!

A Year of Flowers - 2020

One of the things I wanted to do in 2020 was buy a bouquet of flowers each month. I really enjoy having flowers around the house, but previous to 2020, didn't buy them very often. 

I just find flowers to be so bright and cheery, especially against our neutral colored counter top! They are also fairly inexpensive. These were all purchased at Trader Joe's for $6.99. With the exception of my January bouquet which was $3.99 and my December flowers which were a gift for my birthday.

It's something I looked forward to each month and something I want to continue in 2021!

Did you do anything new for 2020 or start something new for 2021?