Polar Caves & Weirs Beach

Polar Caves is one of those attractions I visited as a kid and recently returned with my family. It's not an amusement park, but rather a natural attraction that you can enjoy at a reasonable price. We went on a sunny, late May day and there were fewer than a dozen cars in the parking lot, so we could explore the caves at a leisurely pace, even linger awhile in some of them.

Well kept boardwalks between caves.

The caves are well-marked and have interesting signage explaining the history and other interesting stories about how Native Americans, smugglers and others have used the caves throughout the years. The wooden boardwalks were well-kept and lead you right to the cave entrances. For those who opt not to go through the caves, there was always a bypass, or "chicken walk". My 12-year-old son went straight for the caves - no bypasses for this kid. As for me, a 6-foot, 200 lb. dad, I was able to make my way through all the caves except for the Lemon Squeeze, which was a bummer because when I was a kid, the Lemon Squeeze was no problem. But since they didn't have the "Jaws of Life" handy in case of an embarrassing emergency, I opted to go around.  C'est la vie!

Since it was still early in the season, the Polar Caves lived up to their name. There was still ice in many of the caves which made for a cool reprieve from the warm spring day. After the caves, my son opted to do some "mine exploring" in the Klondike Mines building, where for $8.00 you're given a small flashlight and small bag and sent into a "mine" to find gemstones. The "mine" was a room about 6 x 10 feet, made to look like a mine shaft and dark, so you had to use the flashlight to search the nooks and crannies for gems. My son had a great time. He commented that it was much better than going into the gift shop and simply buying a bag of gemstones off the shelf.

Ashton exploring the Klondike Mine

 If you go, expect to get a slight workout. Some of the stairs are pretty steep, particularly the stairs that lead up to the Raven's Roost Platform. Also, expect to get a little dirty. After all, you're squatting or doing what I'd call a "monkey walk" (on feet and hands) through some of the caves. By no means will you get really dirty unless you slip or decide to crawl, but your shirt or pants might rub against the rocks. We didn't do the Nature Trails or the Sugarhouse, but we did walk through the Rock Garden.

View from Raven's Roost

After Polar Caves we headed to our hotel, which was a story unto itself.  I'm not going to get into it in this post, but if you're interested you can read my review on TripAdvisor.  Then it was off to Weirs Beach.

It's been way too many years since I've been to Weirs Beach and I'm glad we went.  It was my 12-year-old son's first trip there.  He was itching to get into the arcade and play the games.  After a quick go-cart race at Logs of Fun, we headed off to the Fun Spot Arcade which claims to be the "largest arcade in the world."

Go cart track at Logs of Fun

For as much fun as my son had at Fun Spot, I think I had as much or more fun than he did.  As a high school student in the late 70s and early 80s, I was a huge video game fan.  I'd get my roll of quarters and pump one after another into the machines in an effort to get the high score.  Fun Spot brought me back to games I haven't seen in 30 years.  Games like Asteroids, Battlezone, Crazy Climber, Carnival, Rally-X, Donkey Kong and countless others.  Fortunately, my wife and son didn't have to drag me kicking and screaming out of the arcade, but admittedly I left with some reluctance.

Steve engrossed in a game of Battlezone

All and all it was a good trip. We hope to get back there at some point and when we do, you can bet I'll be pumping more tokens into vintage video games and reliving my high school years.