Monday 24 September - Day 34 - Harper's Ferrry and Luray Caverns

Started off the day with a trip to Harper's Ferry.  This was the site of John Brown's attempted uprising to get rid of slavery - often seen as one of the flash points towards the Civil War - and was then later the site of a fairly important Civil War battle.

The town itself is at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers; at the border of Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia.  Both rivers are in deep and narrow river valleys, and the town was mostly built on a tiny area of river bank, including some ground that was created by digging out the side of the hill.
No-one lives at Harper's Ferry any more, because it's far too prone to devastating floods.  The town was flooded many times, but was practically destroyed in 1936.  Since then, it has been rebuilt as a National Historical Park - you can visit and see displays about the events in the town and also see a lot of the old buildings etc, but few cars are allowed and no-one lives there.
The next stop was a Walmart, just to get lunch but also to stock up on any supplies we needed.
Then, we went to the Luray Caverns - a huge cavern complex discovered about 135 years ago.  It's also set up very nicely for visitors, although we were all a bit surprised to discover after the tour guide had chased us all into the cavern that the tour actually involves walking 2 kilometers underground!  However, it was worth it.
Afterwards, the tour guide suggested that we see the 'little' car museum in the same complex.  Turns out that there are 125 carriages and cars, mostly dating from before the 1930s and in excellent condition.  There must be millions of dollars worth of cars in there.
Final trip for the day was into the Shenandoah State Forest.  This was created back in the early part of the 20th century, and it actually involved some people being forcibly removed from their homes.  This seemed really unfair and sad to me, particularly since it didn't involve removing the Skyline Resort which was already a retreat for the rich and famous.  The resort still exists; in fact it's where we're staying tonight.  They try to insist that it's a 'back to nature' sort of place - no internet, mobile phones don't work here, there's no TVs in the rooms - but they have no qualms about having a satellite connection for the ATM and so you can pay for your room, meals etc by credit card.