I FINALLY did it! I got my cave walls and floor to blend correctly . . . thanks to tachzusamm once again (no surprise there). He gave us the example in the Relativity Blend file. All it took was stacking 7 hand made from scratch textures on top of each other combined with two UV maps and two decals reset to Orco and bing, bang, boom! I haz cave
Cave Walls
Disclaimer: There are zero lighting effects in here yet. That's always the last thing to do and I'm not even remotely close to that stage.
I also got reminded that when all else fails, check for youtube modeling tutorials. I had to model a pirate hat that resembled the one Jack Sparrow wears and for the life of me, I couldn't get it where I wanted it and still stay within poly limits. I found a video tutorial of modeling a different hat, but it was enough to help me see what needed done. It may not look like much, but that little hat had me stumped .
Silly Little Pirate Hat
I have to get back to work; I want this thing done by Christmas. If my grandson is agreeable, I'll probably throw it up on Deep Island. It's going to have young-boy pirate stuff in it (including a skull with a knife through it), so it will need some sort of disclaimer that it was built for a little boy to play in.