Weird Science

We decided to stay a second day in Harrisonburg to relax a bit in the Shenandoah Valley. An hour of swimming,  tether-ball, and playing around the campground helped the girls to get their ya-yas out. 

Amaya scratches with the chickens

In the afternoon we took an outing to the nearby Route 11 Potato Chip Factory. They were making "dill pickle" flavored chips that day. Keiko was in heaven. They have a pretty small operation, using only 100 pounds of potatoes in each batch, and do a lot of the work by hand. We could watch the different steps through a window into the production line. I wouldn't want to be the quality control guy who has to pick out the burned and stuck chips by hand. Of course, we had to sample all of their flavors. My favorite was "Mama Zuma's Revenge" which was infused with habanero peppers. Yum.

They wouldn't let us photograph their production line. It must be a matter of National Security.

Almost next door was Shenandoah Caverns, a cave attraction that was developed in the 1920s. Since it was pretty late in the day, our family was the only group there and we had the tour guide all to ourselves. The formations were beautiful, but it was a bit of a shame how it had been developed. Back in the early days, tourists would even break off pieces of the rock formations and there were lots of places where this kind of damage was visible. Now there are Virginia State laws prohibiting touching of the cave walls. Our guide told us that we had walked a little over a mile in the caves, but it didn't seem like that far. My favorite part of the experience was imagining what it must have been like for the teenage boys who discovered the caves and explored them with a rope and candlelight—keeping their find a secret for several years before telling their parents. A boyhood dream.

Mmmmm.....bacon

The weirdest aspect of our visit were the "attractions" associated with the cavern. The current owner of the caverns had some kind of connection with a parade float production company. They had designed floats for many of the US Presidential inauguration parades and he had collected many of them in a giant warehouse adjacent to the caverns. Our cavern tour ticket included admission to these parade float displays as well as a number of animatronic department store window displays from the 1940s and 50s. It was all just a bit creepy if you ask me. The caverns made it worth the trip, though.

Proving again that simple pleasures are the best, the highlight of our day may have been the key lime flavored mint that we had after dinner. The concentrated essence of pina colada sent us into a singing and dancing frenzy on Route 11 in New Market, VA.

You put de lime in de co-co-nut and drink em both up....