As a family with three young boys we are always looking for affordable places to take the kids. Our last trip was to Cave Mountain Lake. Cave Mountain Lake is not to far from Natural Bridge in Virginia. Natural Bridge is a beautiful place to visit, but we had already been there with family before. Natural Bridge offers many attractions including a beautiful hike along Cedar Creek that leads to the Bridge itself, the Natural Bridge Caverns, Wax Museum and Factory Tour and Toy Museum.
A few weeks ago we decided that we wanted to see what else the Natural Bridge area had to offer. We decided on Cave Mountain Lake, it’s a nice little lake, not very big and not too far away. He also mentioned that there was an attraction there that we could stop by on the way to the lake, it is called Foamhenge. Foamhenge is a replica of Stonehenge except that it is made of well, Foam. I said great, sound fun, let’s go.
There was no admission to pay, we just pulled off into a field and there it was at the top of the hill. It’s a silly kind of place, but kind of neat too. Foamhenge was created by Mark Cline. I have never been to Stonehenge, but Foamhenge is supposed to be exactly the same size. As of this summer Foamhenge has a new attraction, a giant fiberglass statue of Merlin the Magician who is standing on a giant hovering stone. Merlin’s arms outstretched appear to be creating Foamhenge. While we were standing in the middle of a giant foam sculpture the kids got a great history lesson on the original Stonehenge and how it was built. They then proceeded to have a great time running circles around the giant chunks of foam. It is not the kind of place to spend too much time, so we moved on.
On the way to the Cave Mountain Lake we passed a sign for the Dinosaur Kingdom, another attraction built by the same man who created Foamhenge. The kids were excited just to see the sign & begged to go. To get the tickets to the Dinosaur Kingdom you have to go to the main building for Natural Caverns to purchase tickets. On the same property as the Dinosaur Kingdom sits Professor Cline’s Haunted Monster Museum and Dark Maze, you can see both attractions for one price. The Haunted house has this giant skull on the front of it with a mechanical eye that stares down at you while you wait for your tour. It looks pretty scary and after talking to the tour guide we learn that they do no-scare tours for family’s with young kids, the Dark Maze is not include in the no-scare tour. With a 15 minute wait we decided to take our chances with the dinosaurs. We found ourselves in the middle of the woods at Dinosaur Kingdom with all sorts of fiberglass dinosaur sculptures. The kids who so eagerly wanted to go were suddenly terrified, begging to leave. There were mechanical dinosaurs that moved and made noise and “jumped” out at the visitors. As the children clung tightly to us, we couldn’t help but chuckle and giggle as we remembered similar childhood experiences. And just as we did when we left some place that terrified us as children, our children jumped up and down wanting to go again.
With a very short wait after our Dino adventure we were on the Professor Cline’s Haunted Monster Museum tour with our kids still clinging to us, but not wanting to leave. The tour includes things that jump out from under furniture, eyeballs in jars and creepy hands that try to get you from behind creaky doors. It was fun and silly and we had a good time.
On to our final destination, Cave Mountain Lake. It was about a 10-15 minute drive from the main Natural Bridge attraction. Even though it was 90 degrees the lake had less than a dozen people there, including kids. Cave Mountain Lake has a great little white beach with a roped off area that is perfect for young children to play and swim in and still feel safe. A little farther out past the sand and along the edge of the forest are scattered wooden benches. There was plenty of room to lay out a few blankets and have a picnic on the beach. The water was a bit cool as the lake is fed by natural springs, but that didn’t stop the kids from jumping in. My middle child wanted to practice his swimming while my oldest true to form sat at the edge of the water and built a sandcastle complete with a mote, a retaining wall and a flag. My youngest was fast asleep just a few feet away. There were only a few other families there, one family with a few tween age kids about 30 feet to one side of us and about another 6 people spread out across the beach on the other side of us. Soon my oldest child made friends with one of two other kids on the beach and they were chasing after salamanders swimming in the water. When it was time to leave the beach there were so many other things to see the kids were eager to move on.
When we pulled in we noticed that they had hiking trails that go into the woods and up the mountain, plenty of picnic tables and a huge pavilion with a fire place. We walked through the picnic area and found that it was clean and well kept with plenty of privacy in between the picnic tables. The pavilion is made in the beautiful log cabin style and has a large well crafted stone fire place on one wall with plenty of picnic tables and open space for a large group to enjoy at day at the beach. Off to the side of the swimming area there are trails to follow that lead to fishing spots and I hear the fishing is pretty good there. It wasn’t until we got there that we found out there was a campground there, so we wanted to drive through and check it out for future reference. The campsites are beautiful and well maintained with a fire pit in each one. As with the picnic area, there is plenty of privacy in the campground. There was also a bathhouse that appeared to be new this year. We had spent less than four hours at Cave Mountain Lake and fell in love with it.
The kids are still taking about that day and can’t wait to go back. It was such a simple little trip to a lake that turned into so much more. They talk about being scarred and being brave, about learning about Stonehenge and how much they want to go back to camp at Cave Mountain Lake. When the day was done, gas included we spent less than $100. We are planning a camping trip to Cave Mountain Lake this weekend. We have never been to the Wax Museum and Factory Tour or to the Toy Museum so maybe we will try to fit those attractions in too.
