Mayberry, Monticello and the Luray Caverns


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July 6th 2007
Published: July 6th 2007
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On our way up through North Carolina and Virginia we stopped at the town of Mount Airy...which was Andy Griffith's home town. This is what he based his show on, and the town has embraced that image whole-heartedly. They've recreated the sets from the show in a small area of town and even offer sherrif car tours of the "famous sights". Paul got a kick out of it, whistling the theme song all day long. Danielle was thrilled by this, of course. 😊

Next on our agenda was the lovely little town of Charlottesville Virginia, and the home of Thomas Jefferson. It was named Monticello, and though not grand or incredibly beautiful, it was very interesting. Jefferson spent some time in France and brought back a lot of ideas with him of how a house should be laid out (such as putting a bed in a wall, so that you can wake up and roll over into a different room depending on if you rolled left or right). He also ruled his life by the clock, and there was a cock in every room. He was also a farmer, but was away from Monticello so often it didn't do very well..haha. But maybe the coolest part was the way he adapted all kinds of inventions for his own use, and collected art and maps and american indian pieces simply to educate his visitors. He turned his house into a kind of hands-on museum, without all of the pomp and fine looking unuseable furniture. Also, learning about his life and his contradictory view on slavery as well as politics was interesting too. Finally, the University in town was founded by him, and all of the originial books in teh library chosen by him as well. Quite the fascinating guy!

Last stop: Luray Caverns, the fourth largest cave system in the US. First in the world is Mammoth Caves in Kentucky, but these were a little more direct on our route, and quite impressive. Though the above ground sections of the cave made it more of a hoaky overpriced roadside attraction than a fantastic geological wonder, the cave tour left nothing to be desired. The temperature underground is a consistent 54 degrees, which was awesome now that summer is in full swing. A tour guide led us through a series of pathed (yes, pathed...) trailes around, under, over and through all kinds of stalactite and stalagmite formations. There was even a pool of water that was so still that it took about 10 seconds for us to realize that it was reflecting the stalactites on the ceiling instead of growing stalagmites up from the floor to meet them. Unfortunately the photos don't do this optical illusion justice.

The cave was found by a couple of explorers who were actually out looking for caves, as this region of America is full of them. They stumbled upon an opening in the ground about as large as a quarter that was gently blowing out cooler air than the August heat, and after digging and exploring, vuala, America's 4th largest cave system. It was aweomse...but the coolest kitchy part? The cave organ. Several years ago, a man crawled around in the cave for three years, tapping the stalactites. Each stalactite in any cave gives off a different vibration that resonates at a different pitch. Finally after three years he found all the notes that he needed, wired up little plungers to tap each one when each key is struck on an organ in a main chamber, and added microphones to each. If one stalactite was struck a mile away it sounded in that chamber over a speaker instantaneously. We even got a demo...the organ played a beautful piece of music for about 2 minutes and we all stood and listened. How crazily beautiful!



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13th July 2007

Mayberry
. . . now if I could just get that theme song out of my head . . . :)
16th July 2007

Hahaha!
...U said "cock"!!! There was a cock in every room? Wow!! Hahaha-j/k! I'm sorry, I'm bored and I found this amusing-hehehe! Have fun! Love, Linda

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