This summer, I was blessed to be given the opportunity to visit the Creation Museum! They generously gave me free admittance in exchange for writing this post. I had been wanting to visit the museum since it was built, and I was thrilled to find out about this chance to see it! If you have children of upper elementary, middle school, or high school ages, I highly recommend that you visit them! I was traveling to a conference at the time of my visit, so my children and husband weren’t with me, but I want them to visit it with me next time. I only had a few hours to see everything, but I’m so glad for the time I had. Next time when I visit with my family, we will plan to set aside a day or two so we can take our time and see everything. And since my visit, they’ve added some zip lines! I had hoped to get the chance to do the zip lines, but they opened the day after my visit. (To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I would have been brave enough to do them anyway, but I like to think I would have been.)
There were so many amazing things to see! There were dinosaur exhibits of all kinds. There were replicas of dinosaurs and of dinosaur bones. There were even some fossilized dinosaur eggs! There was at least one “live” dinosaur exhibit, and it looked and sounded surprisingly real. All I could think about when I saw it was how much my son would have loved that exhibit when he was a little boy and was fascinated with dinosaurs.
There was a Noah’s Ark exhibit that was really neat too! One area was a life-size section of the ark. It was a tiny section since it would have taken a huge amount of space to re-create the whole thing in life-size. Even though it was just a tiny fraction of the ark, it took up an entire room. It was fun to imagine how big the real ark was after walking through that exhibit!
Another area was all about insects, spiders, butterflies, and other creepy-crawlies and flying things. The picture below shows some absolutely huge longhorn beetles. I wish I had thought to put my hand in the photo next to them so you could tell how big they are. The biggest one on the upper left corner was about as big as my hand!  (At least I think this photo was the one that was that huge. There were definitely some that were that big!) But as yuck as these guys were, the butterflies were just the opposite! They were gorgeous. Some of them were really huge too, but I wouldn’t mind meeting one of them in real life. 🙂
Besides all of the neat things to see inside the museum (And I’ve only told you about a few things that I saw!), there are some beautiful things to see outside too! The picture below shows a small part of the grounds around the museum. I think this is what the Garden of Eden must have looked like. There were beautiful plants, flowers, bushes, trees, grasses, and streams everywhere! There were so many beautiful colors that it was hard to decide what to take pictures of! (I had taken so many photos inside that my camera battery was running low.)
The last picture below is of a Zeedonk and a Zorse. These are real creatures that, you guessed it, are a mix of zeebra/donkey and zebra/horse. Unfortunately, they didn’t want to cooperate with my picture-taking efforts! This was the best photo I managed to get of them in which you can actually see most of their bodies and their stripes. The picture doesn’t look as beautiful as these two creatures actually were, though. Although I must admit that they looked a little bit strange too!
There were other animals outside that I wasn’t able to photograph or didn’t get good photos of. There was a camel who seemed to really love visitors! There were other animals too. In fact, it’s a petting zoo, so there are several different animals that you can pet if you like. (I didn’t. I’d rather just look.) Camel rides are also available!
If you have plans to be close by (or even if you don’t! It’s worth a trip just to go to the museum), I’m sure you would love the Creation Museum! It’s located in Petersburg, KY, which is 7 miles west of the Cincinnati airport. A great big “Thank you!” goes out to the wonderful folks at the museum for their generosity, friendliness, and the good work that they do every day!
Very interesting. I do have a question for you. I thought people who followed creationism didn’t believe in dinosaurs. (I’m currently non-religious, but went to Catholic school growing up, and had a nun who was certain that dinosaurs never existed.)
Lisa, then you certainly need to visit the creation museum.
I’m glad you mentioned that, Lisa. While there may be some Creationists who don’t think dinosaurs existed, I don’t know of any. There’s lots of evidence that dinosaurs did indeed exist. The main difference is that Creationists believe (like I do) that dinosaurs existed at the same time as people. We believe that God created the dinosaurs on the 5th and 6th days of creation when he created animals that fly and swim (5th day) and land animals (6th day). We believe that these dinosaurs were some of the creatures that Noah took on the ark. You might like to read some books on the topic or see the Creation Museum for yourself if you live close enough or are ever traveling in that direction. You might also be interested in some books or DVDs on this topic from http://www.answersingenesis.org/. (I am not affiliated with Answers in Genesis or the Creation Museum in any way and will not benefit if you buy resources from them. I just wanted you to know that I’m recommending their resources just because I’ve read/seen many of them, and they are great resources from a reputable company.) If you have more questions or would like to chat about this, please feel free to email me at [email protected]. Thanks for your comment/question!
Thanks! We’re actually in Northern Ohio, so a trip there wouldn’t be too far away. I’ll be sure to look into the resources you mentioned. 🙂
Great! If you have questions, I’d be glad to help you however I can. I’m no expert, but I’m willing to try. 🙂