Day 1: We set out on a Tuesday after Easter and headed south. We ran into some crazy pouring rain on the drive down. But when we got to Cincinnati, there was a break in the rain, the sun came out and we walked around the Cincinnati Zoo enjoying 70 degrees and actually got some sunburn. It started pouring right after we left the zoo, so we timed that just right. Then we headed to our hotel in Florence, KY.
The zoo was nice but many of the habitats were being renovated or the animals were not visible, probably because it was early in the season. But the animals we could see were cool - including Fiona the famous new baby hippo. We did a ton of walking to make up for all that sitting in the car!
Day 2: Wednesday was around 40 degrees with a bitter wind as we headed to the Ark Encounter. The Ark is HUGE and hard to imagine unless you are there to see it. You enter at one end of the Ark on the bottom level and then ascend through 3 levels of museum. The ramps are in the middle of the Ark and you do a circle around each level to see the exhibits. The bottom level talks briefly about creation, the fall, and humanity's descent into evil. It demonstrates that society would have had the technology to build an ark because they had tools of iron/bronze, and musical instruments and such. Then it explains how the Ark logically could have fit all the animals and their food. They determined a number of species of animals and how many of each size of cage would have been needed. It also showed how it would be possible to feed all those animals and dispose of waste. They took some creative license to name the 4 women on the Ark and imagine what each person's "specialty" was, showing them in their imagined living quarters, workshop, kitchen, etc. As you continue up the levels, there's a bit about how science supports the idea of a global flood, an exhibit of really old Bibles, and a gospel presentation. We arrived at the Ark right as it opened which is good. There's only one way through the Ark and if it's crowded, you just have to shuffle along behind the crowd to see each of the exhibits. We were able to cruise through rather quickly. Again, because it was early in the season, the zip lines and camel rides weren't available. We got to hang out with some goats at the petting zoo though. But visiting the Ark didn't take all day as we planned, so we took the kids to Dave & Buster's to play some video games.
Day 3: Thursday was Creation Museum Day. People told us it would take all day to visit this as well. We cruised through in a hour because we beat the crowd again. This museum is well done and walks you through the history of the earth as told by the Bible. You see displays of Adam & Eve and the fall, and Cain & Abel, and even Noah building the Ark. The museum focuses a lot on dinosaurs and how there are so many legends about "dragons" and other large creatures which supports the theory that man and dinosaurs existed at the same time. There's a bit of science describing how natural selection happens, but that's not evolution; and how animals can look quite different but actually be the same species. (Did you know you can breed camels with llamas because they are really the same species?) That explains how Noah could take only 2 of each species on board the Ark and we still end up with the wide variety of animals we have today. The museum has a lovely garden surrounding it which wasn't much to look at so early in the season, so we skipped that.
Then we went disc golfing at Idlewild disc golf course which happens to be in the top 10 disc golf courses in the nation.
Day 4: We drove back home Friday. On the way home, we stopped at the Logan County Genealogy Society for a couple hours and I got to dig around for info on my ancestors who lived there. Brad and Spencer toured their local history museum, but Aaron got into the research with me. We couldn't spend too much time there, though, because we had to get back to pick up the dog at the kennel before they closed! Once again, we lucked out on the weather; it started snowing soon after we got home.
