Wednesday.....Culture.....Creation Museum

Did you ever get a few days off and feel like you have to get away? Well, that's what my wife and I did this week, but where to go, north, south, east or west? I heard about Creation Museum before and thought that if the chance came up....well this was the chance so we headed west to Cincinnati. Creation Museum is located in Kentucky at the tri-state border with Indiana and Ohio, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Answers in Genesis is a creation apologetic organization founded by Australian Ken Ham. I've seen him on television before and he does a good job at presenting and defending the Biblical story of creation. I expected the visit to be good, even very good, but it was more than that! I wish that it had been around about 10 years ago so we could have taken our son here in his early teens. They had over 3,000 visitors at the museum yesterday and today seemed to be at least that many. It's a combination theme park and museum. The parking is set up as in any other theme park with police officers present for security and to direct the parking. We arrived a few minutes before they opened at 10 a.m. and the line for tickets was forming already, but all lines moved fast. They take your picture as you enter and you can purchase it if you want to...we did. The book store is exemplary and I think I know a little bit about Christian bookstores. There were a lot of books for young kids, supplies for teachers and a large assortment of books that ranged from science/technical to easier reading softcovers. It had a very large assortment of teaching DVDs, apparel and toys but the most impressive, to me anyway, was a section of biographies highlighting Charles Spurgeon and Jonathon Edwards to Puritan literature from Banner of Truth publishers. It was recommended to us to view the Stargazer's Planetarium (23 minutes) first, which we did, and it was an enjoyable lay back and look at the cosmos. Dining is good and affordable with an appropriate ambiance looking over the botanical gardens which were next on our agenda, followed by a fun petting zoo and enjoyable nature walk, and there was plenty more to come. Their Special Effects Theater presented Men in White (22 minutes) which had the kids wide eyed and laughing out loud. Probably, from a teaching perspective, the best was yet to come with the Walk Through History, where you follow a maze of exhibits with two theaters. It's an enormous learning experience for a young child, teen and even adults. Give yourself at least an hour to go through this section alone and it probably takes more if you have children with you. We spent about 7 hours at the museum. It's about a 5 1/2 hour trip from Pittsburgh and I can recommend Lawrenceburg, Indiana for accommodations for it's only 5 minutes from the museum. I only had one disagreement with the message given and that was that it highlights, to an extreme degree, a literal six day creation. They obviously feel that they have to hammer this point. We disagree but go for it, for Ken Ham and the others involved in Creation Museum have entertainingly shown multitudes of Christian children the truth that God is also the creator of science, and the more that science is studied, the more God's awesome power and majesty is shown! http://www.creationmuseum.org/