Luray

We split up before breakfast: the girls went down to the gym whilst I took my camera into the slightly insalubrious neighbourhood adjacent to the Hotel to seek out the Westminster Burial Ground and Edgar Allan Poe’s gravesite – they bought back the pastries. Then we checked out and set out for Shenandoah for a few days of rural ‘downtime’, Beck having planned a stop along the way at Luray to check out the caverns and stock up on supplies. The Caverns were spectacular – and pleasingly surrounded by slightly hokey attractions such as a maze and a ‘Carriage and Caravan Museum’, which we skipped, and a really rather decent museum of Local History (complete with various whole old Virginian buildings transplanted from here-and-there), which we skimmed. By the time we got to the Skyland Resort it was snowing fairly steadily – “Don’t worry, there’ll only be an inch,” said the Lady in the Office, cheerfully – but our cabin room was warm and comfortable – and the Mountain Tap was on hand for home cookin’ and bluegrass music…