Creation Museum

We slept in this morning for a nice start to Brock's day off. We ate breakfast burritos, got ready and drove the 40 minutes from our campground to the Creation Museum which is not very far from here as the crow flies, but we aren't crows and the bridge at the state line is the way to get there from here. ;o)

It was very bright and sunny and hot even as we left the campground. We got parked and waited in the Will Call line to pick up the tickets that I'd purchased online so that we could save 10% off.

The first thing we did was attend a special effects show called Men in White which was a satirical look at many stereotypes in education with two angels being the main characters. It was like a 4D experience in that water spritzed you in the face several times when the angels were telling of Noah and the Flood and you felt rumbles in your chair and wind as the angels flew around, but you didn't have to wear 3D glasses. The main message that I got out of the presentation was that all scientists begin their studies with certain presuppositions which do influence their findings.

There was a display on the origins of life and comparing and contrasting different world views which included an exhibit about Lucy, the chimpanzee-like skeleton that was discovered in 1974 and was supposed by some to be a missing link between apes and humans. The most interesting thing to me was the display that showed that a lot of artistic license is taken when models are sculpted from fossils.

We next "walked through history" starting with the Garden of Eden.

There were animatronic people representing different Bible characters in history. The section representing Noah and the Ark was particularly well done as there was a neat interactive exhibit where kids could choose questions from a touch screen and the animatronic Noah would answer them with sounds of animals in the background.

There were more displays from this exhibit up through the time of Christ.

There was a dinosaur display and one of the coolest insect collections I've ever seen. There were tons of specimens showcasing God's creative artistry in all their diverse colors and designs.

A small sampling of the bug specimens...

When we came out of the insectarium, we were surprised to see that there was a thunderstorm in progress. We walked through the gift shop and purchased a few souvenirs. By the time we were finished there, we happily saw that the rain and winds had stopped, but there was some nice cloud cover to make it a little more comfortable for a garden walk.

The grounds were amazing. They had some really unique plants that I'd never seen before. Some really huge water flowers with seed pods that looked like a shower head.

There was a meandering path through the gardens that had some different fun bridges to cross like a floating one and a bouncy hanging one.

Brynna had her camera too and got some really great shots. This waterfall one is my favorite that she took.

There was a zip line that ran right over the pond that was situated between the museum building and the garden. It was fun to watch and listen to the people zinging by overhead. 

There was even a little petting zoo.

See something new...a zorse and a zedonk (zebra horse and zebra donkey).

Spencer playing with his gyroscope which was his souvenir of choice from the museum gift shop.

Since we'd just had granola bars for snacks while at the museum, we were ready for an early dinner. I decided that based on the heat generated by the spaghetti dinner last night, we would eat out. We chose somewhere economical for our big family, Steak n' Shake, and since we placed our order before 4, it was happy hour and all our drinks were half price. Woohoo! Everyone enjoyed their burgers and this particular Steak n' Shake was generous with the french fries.

Brock figured out that it was time for another oil change so while we were at dinner, he found a local shop that had decent reviews and we were able to get in with a little waiting and get that maintenance task done.

We came home to the trailer after our oil change and everyone sought out their individual activities for a little while until the little boys went to bed. 

Brock and Brighton had a PC gaming night. I guess they are trying to get Brighton's character in the game leveled up to a certain point through accomplishing different parts of the game so that he can keep up when they play multiplayer with more of the Weston guys. They had fun with it.

I slowly and painfully got the pictures of today uploaded via the sporadic wifi connection and by using my phone as a hotspot. Neither method was working too well, but it had to get done so that I could use the pictures on this blog. 

We all stayed up too late. Happy that it's Saturday tomorrow.