Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[AugustWest]

The Natural Bridge State Resort in KY sounds right up our alley.  We were thinking of taking the kids on a hiking trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains some other time, but seeing the NBSR would allow us to do it on this trip (instead of a short weekend jaunt) and would help break up the return trip a little.  It's on the list, thanks. 

Great!  If that's the sort of thing you're looking for, it's a great place to hike.  The actual Natural Bridge trail from the lodge to the bridge is about 3/4 of mile, sort of challenging, but well worth it.  It's about 45 mins - an hour off of I-75.  The Nada Tunnel is pretty cool to drive through too.

[Choop]

jack hanna's world-famous columbus zoo - my childhood zoo, i'm a native columbusite (shut up that's what people from columbus are called)

and i just learned that seaworld ohio closed due to mass consolidation in the theme park industry

if your brother and his kids don't live near toledo (i'm guessing they do) consider kings island, about halfway between dayton and cincinatti. home to my favorite roller coaster of all time, the beast: the longest (formerly the fastest and tallest) wooden roller coaster in the world (two chain hills! 45mph! white-knuckle thrills!). though they also had some lame video-screen/wobbly-chair days of thunder ride when i last visited.

have tons o' fun!

[wombat]

I'm dubious about the caves, because they seem, well, boring to me.  But I might just be uninformed, seeing as how I've never spelunked.  Not even a little bit. 

We're not talking about spelunking (which, by the way, is called 'caving' by those who actually do it, who are somehow annoyed by the term 'spelunking').  We're talking about caves that have paths and electric lighting and tour guides and parking lots and admission fees. If you've never been to one, you should do it at least once. Not only are the cave formations interesting but the whole idea of putting paths and lighting and tour guides in a cave is a curious phenonmenon.

There are tons of them in the areas you have laid out.  Some are pretty fancy tourist stops and some are little mom and pop operations.  If you just wanted to stop at the easiest one there's probably one right on your route somewhere - isn't there one at Natural Bridge?  Mammoth Cave is probably too big a deal if you're not sure you're interested.

[CortJstr]

What wombat said. I haven't been to the caves at Natural Bridge but I have been to Lurray and Skyline caverns. Lurray is way more popular, mostly due to advertising and the fact that they also have a hedge maze. I prefer Skyline though. It's less crowded and you get an actual guide throughout. At Lurray they encourage you to just wander through on your own with guides set up at certain attractions such as the pipe organ and the formation that looks like sunny-side up eggs. Skyline also has one dead stalagmite that you're allowed to touch.

No matter which you go to bring a jacket. No matter what the outside temperature is it's always 58F inside the caverns.

[jay-ell]

What wombat said. I haven't been to the caves at Natural Bridge but I have been to Lurray and Skyline caverns. Lurray is way more popular, mostly due to advertising and the fact that they also have a hedge maze. I prefer Skyline though. It's less crowded and you get an actual guide throughout. At Lurray they encourage you to just wander through on your own with guides set up at certain attractions such as the pipe organ and the formation that looks like sunny-side up eggs. Skyline also has one dead stalagmite that you're allowed to touch.

No matter which you go to bring a jacket. No matter what the outside temperature is it's always 58F inside the caverns.

I saw the sunny-side-up egg rock formation in National Geographic World when I was in the second grade!  Oh man.  So cool. 

Lurray sounds more up our alley, what with the lesser degree of commercialization.  Hm.  But I think when all is said and done we might end up going to Natural Bridge State Resort in KY because we need something else to do on that side of the trip, and there's just too damn much other stuff to do in the DC/MD/VA area. 

I will put this on the map, however, and keep it in mind for a future trip.  There's a good chance my brother-in-law and his new wife (who live in Baltimore) would be interested in taking this trip with us some other time if we don't make it this time around. 

[jaydub]

I've long had a fascination with caves.  When I was a boy we had a sandstone cave of sorts in our backyard (we lived on 5 acres of undeveloped land in the hills north of Sydney) and I would build fires and imagine I was an aboriginal hunter.  Anyway, my Dad is intensely claustrophobic and I've always enjoyed giving him the willies by describing my adventures in various cave-like places such as attics, sub-floors, and crawlspaces.  A few years ago, I was on vacation with my college buddies (we all ended up back in the Bay Area after school) in the California gold country, and we came to a place where they had a guided cave tour.  As in - real honest to God crawling through muck caves.  About six of us went in for it (the others went hossback riding or something), hooked up with 3 more people and a guide, and spent about 4 hours crawling around in the belly of the Sierra Nevadas.  My favourite part (and the one my Dad leaves the room for when I retell the story) is a little side chamber which has fairly stringent entrance requirements.  Its about 200 feet below the surface, and you need to put your arms up, push them into a hole in the wall, exhale and slide your body through the hole about 2 feet into the chamber.  The rock has been polished smooth after decades of people doing this, so its physically not difficult (provided you're of moderate proportions.  Once inside, the chamber is about 4 feet in height and eight feet in diameter.  The best part is once you're in, everyone turns off their light.  That, my friends, is darkness.  There is not a spare photon to be had. 

[jay-ell]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGG GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHH

My stomach actually lurched while I was reading that.  I am claustrophobic enough not to be able to dig around under the bed for a lost sock or go in enclosed play towers with my kid, although I have learned to do things like use gas station bathrooms and ride in elevators without getting woozy.  (Well, I might get woozy in gas station bathrooms, but for different reasons.)  But that story...I have literally had nightmares very similar to that. 

So maybe caving isn't the best idea for a family trip?  I mean, I was picturing spacious caverns with artificial lights where an adult can walk upright without stooping.  If at any point I have to crawl through an opening on my hands and knees, we are going to have problems. 

[CortJstr]

Skyline and Lurray caverns are spacious with artificial lights and railings and no stooping. The closest to his story is there's one room in Skyline where they turn off the light but they warn you first, and it's a very large room.

[wombat]

There is no crawling in a commercial tourist cave. It's not caving, it's sightseeing. That's what so odd about it and worth seeing.

Caving is a very athletic pursuit. Apparently Americans are so unfit that they complain about walking through a zoo these days, so no one would try to make a living expecting tourists to do anything remotely resembling real caving.  So you have nothing to worry about.

Mammoth and some other places do offer guided caving tours into the wild parts of the cave, at least they used to, with crawling, mud,etc, but no one would let you bring a three year old, much less a baby, so it's not like you could accidentally stumble into the wrong tour.

[jay-ell]

Well, that's a relief, to say the least. 

So, any other ideas?  We've had nature and theme park suggestions, but what about all the other stuff you can do on a trip?  I know I said no fine dining, but what about shopping?  Anybody know a good place to check out hand-spun yarn?  An incredibly ridiculous toy store?  A full-size model of the U.S.S. Enterprise done entirely in Lego? 

I am aware of Potomac Mills and their Lego outlet.  (They also have a Games Workshop store that may interest Pedro.)  We went there on our DC trip last summer, though, so I'm thinking there's not necessarily a need to stop there again. 

Choop: Yes, I discovered a few years ago (to my great disappointment) that SeaWorld Ohio closed.  I, too, went as a child, and probably still have my stuffed Shamu somewhere.  I would adore taking the kids, but I'll have to save that for a Florida trip some time in the indeterminate future. 

[CortJstr]

If you take 15 from VA into MD you'll pass a whole mess of antique shops (not to mention a couple wineries). There's also a small outlet mall off of 15 (about 110 stores). And weather permitting you could take the ferry over the Potomac, which is always more fun than some lame ol' bridge.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Depending on how you are going from NJ/Philly to Ohio, you might consider visiting the nation's oldest continuously operating farmer's market in Lancaster, PA.  I bet you can score some hand-spun wool there, plus some kick-ass donuts, good bread, fresh produce, and various and sundry smoked meat products.
http://cityoflancasterpa.com/lancastercity/cwp/browse.asp?a=671&bc=0&c=42768

[jay-ell]

YES. 

This is what I am talking about.  Nice, nice. 

[AugustWest]

There are no caves near Natural Bridge SRP.  The karst topography is about 100 miles or so southwest. 

As for Mammoth Cave, virtually all of the tours that are offered are downright cushy.  Nothing very claustrophobic, with the possible exception of "Fat Man's Misery" which is narrow, but not otherwise overly confined.  In fact, there are many very large (one might even say mammoth chambers that you walk through.  The "turn off all the lights" thing did happen on every tour I've every taken, though.  It is the most complete darkness you'll ever experience.

[side_show]

I know it's not on the itinerary, but if you somehow end up in Canada, you can meet me at the children's theatre where I will slip the boy into YogaKids, the papa and infant into Kindermusic, and I will get you so hammered on Canadian beer that you will not know what to do with yourself.  Also nachos.