I hated that assignment when I was a kid. You know the one where you had to write a short paper about what you had done over the summer. I never felt like I had anything to write about. Or perhaps, more accurately, I had plenty to say, but I wasn’t able to break it down to a simple paragraph. Now look at me. I can’t help myself, I write down all kinds of stuff (so to speak.) I still think of this as writing although I’ve abandoned paper and pencil completely.

Anyway, on with my vacation or at least part of it. We took the kids and two of my nieces to Skyline Caverns in Front Royal, Va. I was very disappointed, actually. My parents had taken us to Luray Caverns when I was a kid and we loved it. We should have gone there but we opted for trying someplace that none of us had been to before.

The kids did have fun, and that’s what really counts. The tour guide was a dead ringer for Harry Potter, it was amazing. I kept looking at him and expecting to see that the resembance wasn’t as strong as I thought at first. But to the contrary, the longer the tour went on the more his appearance and mannerisms begged the comparison. Unfortunately, Harry Potter seems to much better at Quidditch than he is at guiding tours. There were some cool things to see, but it seemed that we walked by some incredible formations without a chance to look at them, much less get any information. I know I’m just a big nerd, but it seemed like they were trying too hard to make the cavern seem fun. I think just being in the cave and seeing these geological formations was pretty fun. There is no need to make into a carnival. In the next chamber you’ll be amazed to see … and so on and so forth. In one chamber they actually had a pre-recorded spiel about how man had built over all God’s creations above earth, but down here the Creators work was here in all of it glory. Please! It was very cheesy and it sounded like it was recorded in the 60’s.

In the gift shop, however, I found a very cool chess board and pieces. All made out of stone (soapstone, maybe) the black has white marbled through it and the white has pinkish red marbled through it. It was only $50 dollars, which is a good price for a nice chess board. So I bought it and am very glad I did. It has been given a prominent place on the coffee table in the living room. And we’ve actually been playing a fair amount. I hope that keeps up. A good game of chess beats TV any day.