Nice Sunday

Let me say at the very beginning of this post... it really was a nice Sunday. The weather was beautiful. After a walk down to Starbucks ; ) we put James in the car, fished a map of Virginia out of the glove box and hit the road. We decided to drive about an hour west to Front Royal, VA. I had heard that it was "mountain-y" and we are very excited for Fall to begin so that sounded great. 10 minutes into our drive, James fell asleep... FOR AN HOUR. See? It's sounding nice already! Very unusual nap time for him, but who are we to turn down a silent toddler?

As we cruise into Front Royal, we pass something called "The Apple House" which promises, "Breakfast, BBQ, Doughnuts, Crocs and Vera Bradley bags." Hmmm. There are also several signs for the "Skyline Caverns." What luck! James has never seen a cavern - what do we have to lose? It turns out.... we stand to lose the blood flow to our extremities. The caverns are kept at a cool 54 degrees and we are dressed in shorts, t-shirts, flip flops so this is a "no-go." Note to self: stock the car with clothes for every season for every member of the family.

Luckily, the Skyline Caverns also feature a miniature train! Are you kidding me? Purrrr-fect! No one loves a miniature train more than James. We were already strategizing buying several tickets in anticipation of "again? again?" cries from James. Alas, the train was "down for the day."

No problem - the Skyline Caverns also feature an "Enchanted Dragon Mirror Maze" where you walk around a room of funhouse mirrors looking for the dragon's egg. I assure you James has never seen a mirror maze and we knew he would love staring at himself in every one. He does it at home in our regular mirrors all the time so this would be quite a treat!  You guessed it - closed.

So we settled on this:

Here is sweet flexible James posing with a dinosaur that seems a bit out of place in between the entrance to the caverns and the broken down train. It's important to note that in our family, this dinosaur is called, "the-statue-dinosaur-and-it's-not-scary." All one word and in one breath please.

Do not despair. There is light at the end of the tunnel. The Apple House. On the way out of town, we stopped at this delightful place where they do, in fact, serve food AND sell Crocs, Vera Bradley bags and candles. My breakfast was 2 large buttermilk pancakes, 2 eggs, 4 strips of bacon, giant homefries, 2 slices toast, and 2 homemade - fried right before your eyes - doughnuts. Total cost= $6. Seriously. James ate next to nothing, Brian had a BBQ sandwich and my belly looked like I ate an Applehouse FOR breakfast. 

Happy happy lovely Sunday.