After Lilli enjoyed a bottle we headed about 5 miles away to the Natural Bridge tourist attractions. It's a conglomerate of all things touristy rolled into one overpriced package, sure to make you cringe.
Here's their hotel. It's beautiful and historic on the outside, but pretty much hasn't been updated since the 70's on the inside which is why we did not stay there.
The rain had totally stopped, so we bought our tickets and headed to the Natural Bridge just in case it started raining again soon. It was a really short walk out behind the main giftshop/ticket/cafe building. BUT, it was a ton of stairs so Brent had to tote Lilli down them in her stroller.
You never quite realize how many stairs there are on the planet until you have a person in a stroller to push around. It was a really short walk, and there it was, the
Natural Bridge. There's a lot of history to the bridge, but Thomas Jefferson loved it and bought it a really long time ago. It's absolutely huge, and the highway literally runs on top of it.
Lilli & I enjoying the beautiful fall walk....
They have various light shows at night, and they were also getting ready for a wedding there that night.
Supposedly these are George Washington's initials.
Brent caught Lilli & I working on self portraits of ourselves...
The view from my camera....
One last pic of the Bridge....I mean it cost us $18 a piece to see it, might as well flaunt it!
Afterwards we hiked back up to the main building, went through the included Toy Museum and grabbed some gross lunch in the cafe. This town needs some competition! After playing around in the gift shop we headed over to the caverns.
At this point Lilli had been awake for HOURS. We hadn't been in the car much that day since everything was so close together, and I had thought she'd probably nap in the stroller while we were at the Bridge, but she just didn't. She doesn't want to miss anything these days, so she rarely, if ever, naps while we're out and about. I could tell she was sleepy when I put her in the front carrier, and I promised her a pony if she'd behave on the tour. There were probably about $30 people on our tour, and I REALLY did not want to disrupt this for the group!
This was my favorite cave we toured, maybe because we went through a lot of rooms and up and down, and narrow spaces. Looking back on the pictures the formations really weren't as pretty as Bristol Caverns. Our tour guide was also really friendly and fun, too.
Resident Bat
There were a lot of stairs and ups and downs, and everything in a cave is always SO wet! I went last and let everyone go ahead of me so I could take my time. Everyone on the tour was very nice to us, and Lilli was great until we got to the very last room at the bottom. We were down there FOREVER because people started asking a ton of questions and she eventually had enough. As soon as we got moving again she was fine though. When she's tired she does not want to linger!
She LITERALLY, finally passed out on the long tunnel back up to the ground level. Out like a LIGHT. I even tripped on a step on the way out and she didn't wake up. Lots of people from our tour were pointing at her in the gift shop and laughing since she'd been so awake and social on the tour.
From there we were done with Virginia and headed West to West Virginia! Our resort for the night was only an hour/hour and a half away. We headed deeper into the mountains and the leaves were SO pretty.
Welcome to West Virginia! State #43 for us!
The town our resort was in was absolutely adorable. They had Halloween displays on EVERY corner!
We finally arrived and it was everything I had hoped for! Magnificant! This was our first view from the outside.
Lilli and I in one of the lobbies
The Greenbrier was AWESOME and will get its own post!!! Stay tuned!
Just the short version tonight, but I'll put more up later and some video, too!
She made friends with an elementary school girl sitting next to us by pulling her hair. The girl kept scooting closer and closer to us, by the end of the ride she was shoulder to shoulder with me and playing with Lilli.
Just a few more days until it's costume time! We got all the decorations out this weekend and our house is a-glow with Halloween spirit, inside and out!
There's just something fabulous about driving up and having someone totally take care of anything you might want or need for the next 24 hours. We highly considered calling the concierge to come up for diaper changes. Every part of check in was fabulous! I had reserved an upgraded room and it did not disappoint.......
Any place with a separate shower/tub gets my thumbs up. Lilli took her first ever TRUE tubby in their huge tub. We still use the baby tub at home because it's just easier and she still fits... And the bathroom was so nice that Brent and I actually ate dessert on it later that night. Lilli kept waking up from her sleep, so we just went in there and shut the door to enjoy dessert without disturbing her. That's how you KNOW a bathroom is nice!
Our room was nice and HUGE! Finally lots of room for Lilli to crawl around and play....
Brent knows on every trip we're going to end up with room service at some point. I just love it and can't resist! And, all the restaurants onsite were pretty fancy and we just weren't in the mood to try to wrangle Lilli through an upscale dinner anyway (and we didn't have a jacket for Brent). You know a place is awesome when you ask if you can substitute something for one of the sides and they just say "Sure, what do you want?" "Well, what do you have?" "Whatever you want." Nice. They also deliver ice to all the rooms at 5 oclock every day. And of course chocolates on the pillows and robes.... It was just fabulous.
We didn't make it to swim in the indoor pool before it closed at 7 pm, so that was first on our agenda the following morning. Their pool was HUGE! So nice, and even with a lifeguard on duty.
The rain had totally stopped, so we bought our tickets and headed to the Natural Bridge just in case it started raining again soon. It was a really short walk out behind the main giftshop/ticket/cafe building. BUT, it was a ton of stairs so Brent had to tote Lilli down them in her stroller.
You never quite realize how many stairs there are on the planet until you have a person in a stroller to push around. It was a really short walk, and there it was, the Natural Bridge. There's a lot of history to the bridge, but Thomas Jefferson loved it and bought it a really long time ago. It's absolutely huge, and the highway literally runs on top of it.
From there we were done with Virginia and headed West to West Virginia! Our resort for the night was only an hour/hour and a half away. We headed deeper into the mountains and the leaves were SO pretty.
