Vacation 2004: Day Two…
The morning was spent at Luray Zoo, a tiny zoo stocked with both handbred and rescued animals that was been featured on multiple wildlife shows, even visited by Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter when he needed to borrow some snakes for one of his locally produced shows.
The curators, husband and wife Mark and Jennifer, have owned the zoo for the past eight years and are involved in all day-to-day operations; Jennifer put on a birds of prey presentation in an intimate theatre that seats no more than fifty people, and Mark patrolled the snake exhibit and manned the cash register. Jennifer’s rapter display was a stomach-turning episode for some as most of the birds on display demonstrated their feeding techniques on small mice, either swallowing them whole or tearing them to pieces with sharp talons and strong beaks. The kids endured the show with gusto, Cortney only freaking out when a show-busting praying mantis visited her left leg, her blood-curdling screams and frantic sloughing of her leg interrupting the show. The small zoo desperately needs to expand, its too-small cages packed with alligators, crocodiles, tigers, Andean condors, lemurs, and camels (among others).
The afternoon encompassed a visit to the very nearby Luray Caverns, a more-than-mile-long trek underground into spectacular caverns discovered in August of 1878 by a trio of locals. Fortunately, the tickets to the caverns included admission to the on-site Carriage and Car Museum as a separate admission would not have been worth any price, the cars not fully restored and not overly impressive.
The Garden Maze, also on the grounds of the caverns, was a fun ending to a packed day. Not only was the goal finding your way through the pine-tree maze tamed by entwined metal fencing, but also finding four checkpoints at which you stamped a card you received at the start of the outdoor maze. It seemed very much like a typical Amazing Race detour or Survivor challenge. Fun!
Torrential rains plagued us on our return, so heavy that freeway traffic was reduced to less than 40 miles per hour. A leisurely movie night ensued.
