Living Our Dream

Holmes County, OH Part III: Cheese and More

Berlin, OH - Events of Saturday, August 25 ro Monday, August 27, 2012

Our friends, Barbara and Dick, pulled into Scenic Hills about 2:30 on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, the 50-amp sites on our end of the lower level of the campground were all booked up with people coming in early for the upcoming Labor Day weekend. Therefore, the only site Barbara and Dick could get on the lower level was at the far end. It is a very nice site on the end of the row with lots of room, but it was pretty far away.

Shortly after they arrived, we stopped by their site to greet them. We needed to run an errand, so we made arrangements to meet up with them a little later for dinner, and we headed out on our errand and left them to set up.

We picked them up about 4:30 and headed to Der Dutchman in Walnut Creek for dinner. Dick had a two-piece broasted chicken dinner with the salad bar as one of his sides, and the rest of us just had the salad bar.

Afterward, we stopped in the bakery adjacent to the restaurant just to see if anything looked good. Since it was Saturday evening and the restaurant and bakery aren't open on Sunday, all the baked goods in the display care were half price - much to our delight. We got two cream-filled doughnuts for the price of one for breakfast the following morning, and Barbara and Dick got doughnuts plus a large cinnamon roll. We also bought a small, no-sugar-added blueberry pie that we enjoyed with some Breyer's Carb Smart vanilla ice cream while we sat and chatted with Barbara and Dick outside our rig when we got back to the campground.

On Sunday, our friends went to the NFL Hall of Fame over in Canton while we relaxed around the motor home. Margery cooked up some delicious Chicken Caesar Florentine, and we all got together for dinner later at our rig. We had a great time catching on what we had all been doing for the summer and planning our activities for the next few days.

Shortly after lunch on Monday, the four of us headed up the road to Heini's Cheese Chalet. Heini's is one of several places in the area that makes cheese, but it is the only one we know of that has large viewing windows where you can watch the cheese being made.

Heini's Cheese Chalet

Heini's is also the only place we know of where you can sample almost every one of the different cheeses they have to offer. Their sales room is set up in a "U" shape with display coolers filled with cheese all around the room. The crowds can be very heavy on Saturdays, and it can take the better part of an hour to shuffle your way around the room waiting to get to the next sample. Fortunately when we were there on Monday, you could get to just about any sample you wanted with no wait.

No crowds at Heini's on Monday

We got there just in time to watch them finishing up a batch of cheese. Milk had previously been added to a large vat along with other ingredients like cheese cultures, enzymes and an acidifying agent. Things like time, temperature, type of starter cultures and the type of enzyme all go into determining the kind of cheese being produced.

After the milk has been mixed, coagulated, salted, mixed again and cooked, the liquid (whey) is drained off. The solids (curds) are pushed down to one end of the vat where they are removed by a conveyor. Workers distribute the curds into stainless steel molds.

Cheese curds being distributed into molds

The molds have two sections, one of which collapses down inside the other. Workers place lids on the molds and place them into the presses shown behind the molds in the photo below. The cheese remains under pressure for at least 12 hours.

Cheese molds waiting to go into presses

After we watched the cheese making process a while and we had some samples, Barbara and Dick bought a couple of chunks of cheese. Then we headed about 15 minutes north to Lehman's Hardware. Lehman's sells lots of interesting items like LP gas refrigerators, hand-cranked grain mills, oil lamps, canning supplies and other things that are of interest to the local Amish population. We always like to see all the unusual items, and we usually recommend a stop at Lehman's for anyone who has never been there.

Lehman's Hardware

Lehman's has an extensive stock of wood stoves for cooking and for heating. There are lots of antiques on display alongside the new merchandise like the older wood, coal and kerosene heaters in the photo below.

Old wood, coal and kerosene heaters on display alongside new merchandise

Dick ended up talking to one of the salesmen in the stove room for a while where he learned a lot about the Amish lifestyle. Barbara bought a couple of toys for the grandkids. Paul was particularly intrigued by one display of old gadgets and parts called "what is it." He studied quite a few of the items, but was able to identify only a couple.

Paul studied a display of old gadgets

It was getting late when we finished up looking around Lehman's, so we headed back to Scenic Hills where Barbara whipped up a delicious dinner of salmon, cheesy broccoli and salad. We had more sightseeing scheduled for the next day, so stay tuned.

Holmes County, OH Part II: Motor Home Project - Replace Water Inlet Valve

Berlin, OH - Events of Thursday, August 23, 2012

Most motor homes have a three-way ball valve so you can fill your fresh water tank when your hose is hooked up to the city water inlet. One position of the valve sends water to the piping in your rig, which is the position where the valve normally sits, and the other position diverts water to fill your fresh water tank.

We normally travel with our fresh water tank about ¼ full so we have sufficient water for flushing and hand washing while on the road even if we're parked off-level. We keep the water in the tank while we're in camp in case of emergency. We have had the water shut off several times in campgrounds for repairs, so having a little water in your tank comes in handy. Paul drains and replaces the water in the water tank about every 7 to 10 days to keep it fresh.

Starting about a year ago, we noticed the amount of water in our fresh water tank seemed to increase slowly while we were hooked up to city water. That meant one of two things. The first possibility was the check valve in the pump was leaking and water was passing back through the pump and getting from the city water hookup into the fresh water tank. The second possibility was the three-way ball valve that diverts water from the city water hookup to the fresh water tank was leaking. Paul disconnected the hose from the pump and determined it was not the check valve in the pump that was leaking, so that meant it was the three-way ball valve.

Paul looked for a replacement valve online. There were several similar valves available, but he wasn't sure which was the right one. Because of limited space in the existing plumbing in the wet bay where the valve is located, Paul didn't want to take a chance on ordering a valve online and having it turn out to be bigger, so we ended up ordering a valve from Tiffin last fall when we were staying in Summerdale. That way we were absolutely sure we had the correct valve. The ball valve that diverts water from the city water inlet to the fresh water tank is the one with the yellow handle in the photo below.

Wet bay panel with three-way ball valve (yellow handle)

As with just about every RV being built today, our motor home is plumbed with PEX tubing. PEX tubing is quick to install; and if properly installed, the connections are very secure. The security of the connections plus excellent high and low temperature resistance make PEX ideal for RVs. PEX is even being used in newer residential housing in place of PVC pipe.

Unfortunately, a special tool is required to install crimp rings to fasten the tubing to the fittings. Homeowner versions of the crimping tools are available at Lowe's, Home Depot and other home centers and large hardware stores for $60 to $100. There are slip-on fittings (one brand name is Shark Bite) that can be used in place of the fittings that require the crimp rings, but the slip-on fittings are bigger than the standard PEX fittings and require a lot more space. Extra space is one thing that doesn't exist behind our wet bay panel where the ball valve is located, so using slip-on fittings was out of the question.

Paul put off installing the new ball valve partly because he was hoping to find an alternative to buying one of the crimping tools. The other reason he put the job off was that plumbing is not one of his favorite tasks. Something always seems to go wrong. Either the new part doesn't fit, an additional fitting is required or something happens that creates a leak somewhere else. Any way you look at it, plumbing almost always requires several trips to the hardware store.

When we were at Caesar Creek State Park prior to coming to Berlin, we had no city water hookup and were using our fresh water tank and pump. The leaking ball valve caused the motor home's fresh water system to loose pressure so the pump would cycle every few minutes. The leak is an internal leak so we didn't loose water, but we did loose pressure within the system. Listening to the pump cycle frequently was very annoying, so Paul made up his mind he would replace the leaking ball valve while we were in Berlin even if he had to bite the bullet and buy a crimping tool.

One alternative to buying a crimping tool was to see if Lowe's or Home Depot had crimping tools that they would loan out or rent. There is no Lowe's or Home Depot near Berlin, so when Paul was at Keim Lumber last Friday, he was happy to see they had a tool rental department. He checked, and they had a PEX crimping tool available for rent for $10 a day.

Paul decided to tackle the plumbing job the following Thursday. He called Keim Lumber at 7:30 in the morning (they open at 7:00) to reserve the crimping tool. After breakfast, he went down to pick it up.

PEX crimping tool

When renting things, you normally have to produce a drivers license for identification and provide either a cash deposit or your credit card number so they can charge you for the item in the event you fail to return it. Paul was surprised to find this was not the case at Keim Lumber. All he had to do was sign the rental agreement. Holmes County is a deeply religious community where the majority of the population is either Amish or Mennonite. You give your word with your handshake or your signature, and your word is your bond. Not only did Keim Lumber not require a drivers license or a deposit, but they didn't even require payment for the rental until the tool was returned rather than when it is picked up. They let Paul walk out of the store with a $100 tool just on his signature.

Back at the motor home with a bag of PEX crimp rings and the PEX crimping tool ready to go, Paul began to remove the panel in the wet bay. He had already decided there was no way he was going to be able to get that long-handled crimping tool up behind the panel to install the new valve, so the only way was to remove the panel, which required disconnecting all the screw-on fittings to the outside shower, the city water inlet and the black tank rinse connector and removing the screws that held those fittings in place. He then was able to drop the panel itself down to reveal a tangle of wires, pipes and hoses.

Tangle of wires, pipes and hoses behind the wet bay panel

The next step was to cut off the crimp rings from the old valve. Although they make a special tool to remove the crimp rings, Paul figured out a way to remove the rings without the tool. He has an X-acto razor saw that worked very well. The razor saw has very fine teeth, and it works very well on metal. In spite of the fine teeth, it cuts fast because the teeth are very sharp. It also requires a lot less room to use than a hack saw.

Sawing off the old crimp rings

Closeup of valve with crimp ring cut and ready to be removed

As we said earlier, the joints in PEX are very secure. The crimp rings clamp down on the plastic tubing and the barbs on the metal fittings dig into the inside of the tubing. Even after the metal crimp rings are removed, it is still almost impossible to get the tubing off the fittings without slitting the tubing. Fortunately, Paul had a small piece of PEX tubing on hand so he didn't have to worry about destroying the old tubing in order to remove it.

After he got the old valve out, Paul had to remove the threaded elbows from the old valve and install them on the new one.

New valve before the installation of the threaded elbows

New valve with elbows in place and rings ready to be crimped

Even with removing the panel in the wet bay, there was barely enough room to get the crimping tool in there and work the long handles. Paul persevered and got all the rings firmly crimped. After connecting up all the remaining screw-on water fittings, it was time for the moment of truth. Paul turned on the water and there were no leaks on the first try! Amazing! As we said earlier, plumbing is not one of Paul's favorite tasks because something almost always goes wrong, but not this time.

Completed installation of diverter valve (blue handle to the right)

After Paul got the new valve installed, the panel put back into place and his tools put away, he returned the crimping tool to Keim Lumber. When they handed him the final bill, it was for only $8, not $10 as they originally quoted. They gave a discount for returning the tool before 24 hours was up. It gave Paul a reason to like Keim Lumber even more than he already did.

Barbara and Dick are our friends from North Carolina who stopped for a few days when we were in West Memphis back in July. Afterward, they headed north where they spent the summer around the Great Lakes. We got a call from them about a week ago saying they were planning to stop at Scenic Hills for a few days on their way back south. It will be good to see them again and to hear about their summer adventures. We will also do some sightseeing with them while they're here, so stay tuned.

Holmes County, OH Part I: Getting Settled

Berlin, OH - Events of Thursday, August 16 to Sunday, August 18, 2012

Our drive on Thursday was about three hours, which was longer than the previous two drives of only an hour and a half, but less than our preferred maximum of four hours. Our destination was Berlin, OH, which is in the heart of Ohio's Amish country in Holmes County.

By the time we hooked up the car and went to the dump station, we didn't get on the road until well after 10:00 AM. Therefore, by the time we also made a fuel stop, we didn't get to Scenic Hills RV Park until almost 2:00 PM. Scenic Hills is a well-kept RV park just to the east of downtown Berlin. It is run by a nice Mennonite couple who work hard to make the campground a pleasant place to stay.

Scenic Hills has full hookups. There are no bathroom or shower facilities, so it is for self-contained RVs only. There are a mixture of pull-throughs and back-ins, and a mixture of 30-amp sites and 30/50-amp sites. Transmitters for the free Wi-Fi are located at numerous spots around the campground, so reception is good. The Wi-Fi is also fairly fast, which was a good thing because, although Verizon cell service seemed OK, the Verizon Broadband was a little spotty where we were located on the lower sites. We had our external, roof-top Wilson antenna hooked up to our Pantech modem, but we don't have an amplifier so we couldn't always get online with Verizon.

The roads at Scenic Hills are semi-paved (tar and chips), and the pads are gravel. As we have explained in previous posts, Scenic Hills has sites on three levels. The upper and lower levels have grass between the sites and the middle level is all gravel. The spacing between most of the sites isn't bad for a private campground, although a few sites are a little close together.

We like to get a site on the lower level because there is a lumber mill next to the campground, and we think the noise from the equipment at the mill is less on the lower level. Fortunately, the lumber mill shuts down at 3:00 PM, and it doesn't operate on the weekends.

Our site on the lower level

View of some of the other sites on the lower level

The nightly rate at Scenic Hills for a regular site is $30, but there are discounts for stays of 3 nights or longer. We are going to be at Scenic Hills for 4 weeks, so we got the monthly rate of $525.

Since we are doing a little less traveling and staying longer at each stop this year, we are making a lot of those stops in our favorite places. Holmes County is definitely one of our favorites because we love seeing the neatly-kept Amish farms, the horses and buggies and all the bright flowers that are everywhere in summer. We also love the delicious food that is available.

Amish farm in Holmes County

Flowers are everywhere in summer

As we said, we didn't arrive until almost 2:00. Margery usually packs sandwiches for us to eat on the way if we think we will be arriving at our destination much after 1:00, but she didn't this time. Therefore, shortly after we got set up, we went to Der Dutchman restaurant in nearby Walnut Creek to have their salad bar for lupper. In addition to plenty of delicious salad fixin's, the salad bar also includes things like chicken salad, ham salad, three bean salad, pasta salad, sweet 'n' sour carrots, pickled beets, and much more.

Der Dutchman has about half a dozen restaurants in Ohio that specialize in Amish-style cooking. The same company also owns Das Dutch Essenhaus in Middlebury, IN, and they recently opened a new location in Sarasota, FL. Sarasota is a favorite winter vacation destination for Amish and Mennonites from all over the country.

You'll be hearing more about Der Dutchman because we'll be eating there several times while we're in Berlin. We will have to try to pace ourselves so we don't blow all the progress we've made with our diets, especially since we will be heading to Pittsburgh soon for our annual doctor checkups. We have both reached our final goals, and we have each lost around 30 pounds.

After leaving Der Dutchman, we swung past Winesburg Meats to get some beef snack sticks that are like a cross between Slim Jims and summer sausage. We only got two packages on this stop (one dozen sticks per package), but we'll definitely be getting more for the freezer before we leave Berlin.

Winesburg Meats

Paul went to Keim Lumber in the nearby town of Charm, OH on Friday morning while Margery stayed back at the motor home. Keim Lumber is a huge home center that, in addition to the usual building supplies, also sells a nice selection of fine hardwoods including many exotic varieties. They have an enormous selection of tools and an extensive stock of hardware items that go beyond what you normally find in Lowe's and Home Depot. Paul spent almost two hours just walking around checking out what they had to offer.

Keim Lumber

Exotic hardwoods at Keim Lumber

Just part of the selection of hand-held power tools at Keim Lumber

On Saturday, we went back to Der Dutchman for their breakfast buffet. Although they serve the buffet every day, we are in the habit of going on Saturday because that's when we used to go when we went to Berlin for the weekend from our stick house in Pittsburgh. That's also when we go when Lora and J. Michael meet us in Berlin for the weekend.

Der Dutchman restaurant

The breakfast buffet at Der Dutchman includes scrambled eggs, a couple of kinds of potatoes, French toast sticks, mini pancakes, oatmeal, fried mush, sausage gravy, biscuits, bacon, breakfast sausage (sometimes links, sometimes patties, sometimes both), smoked sausage, cold cereal, several kinds of pudding, fresh fruit salad, frozen fruit slush, cinnamon rolls and more.

Margery about to dig into breakfast

After breakfast, we did the other thing we traditionally do on Saturday in the Berlin area, and that was to go to one of the two area flea markets. The Holmes County Flea Market is located just down the road from Scenic Hills. In fact, you can see the building from the far end of the campground. The other flea market that we decided to save for another time is the Amish Flea Market, and it is located in Walnut Creek to the east of Der Dutchman.

Holmes County Flea Market

Both area flea markets have mostly new merchandise, and much of it is country-style decorative items.

Paul posing with owls at one of the booths at the flea market

As we have mentioned before, just about everything in the area is closed on Sunday. We spent most of the day relaxing and watching the NASCAR race. We'll let you know what else we find to do in our next post.

 

Caesar Creek State Park, OH

Wilmington, OH - Events of Friday, August 10 to Thursday, August 16, 2012

We took our time again leaving Little Farm on the River RV Resort on Friday because we had another short drive of only about 1½ hours to our next destination at Caesar Creek State Park near Wilmington, OH. Caesar Creek SP has always has been a favorite place of ours. It is located northeast of Cincinnati, and it is about 5 hours from where we used to live in Pittsburgh. We used to camp there on almost every long holiday weekend.

One of the things we like about Caesar Creek is the widely-spaced, grassy sites. Another thing we like is the fact the place us usually pretty empty during the week. In fact, Caesar Creek, along with some of the other Ohio state parks, honor Passport America from Sunday through Wednesday nights for half-price camping in order to help boost business during the week.

We pulled into Caesar Creek shortly after noon. Caesar Creek, like most Ohio state parks, has only electric hookups. There are spigots about every 8 or 10 sites where you can fill your fresh water tank.

The electrical hookups are 20/30 amp. When Margery made our reservations for this stop, however, she noticed a number of the sites have been designated as tent sites. When we arrived, we saw sections where the electrical boxes had stickers on them that said "20 amp only." Paul's theory is some of the underground electrical cables for the 30-amp circuits have gone bad, and budget shortages have prevented replacing them. Therefore, the 30-amp service to those sites has been shut off the sites are only used for tenters. The tent sites are clearly indicated on the reservation web page, so you don't have to worry about arriving to find out you only have 20 amps.

The roads and pads at Caesar Creek are paved. Most of the pads are rather short, and some of them also have a bit of a slope from front to back. The one we had this time was a little low in back, but at least we didn't have to put blocks under the rear wheels like we have had to do on a couple of occasions at Caesar Creek.

Our site at Caesar Creek State Park

Although Caesar Creek is usually quiet during the week, it is close to both Cincinnati and Dayton, and it can be very crowded and zooy on holiday weekends. The size of the crowd varies on regular weekends during the summer, but the campground is usually nearly full. This time, however, the campground was only about half full. The next photo shows some of our neighboring sites, and you can get an idea of the size of the crowd. The campground emptied out on Sunday, and we pretty much had the place to ourselves the rest of our stay.

The campground was about half full on the weekend.

The weather has been getting a little cooler as we head north, and a cold front went through just before we got to Caesar Creek. That was a good thing because we only had 30-amp electric. Daytime highs were predicted to be in the 70s to low 80s, and the lows were supposed to be in the 50s and 60s. When we got up on Saturday morning, it almost felt like fall.

The fact that there are several large flea markets in the area is another thing we like about Caesar Creek. We used to go to two or three of them on a weekend when we had a stick house. Now we only go to one or two. After breakfast on Saturday, we headed to Caesar Creek Flea Market, which is located only about 5 miles from the campground down at the interstate exit.

Caesar Creek Flea Market has both indoor and outdoor vendors, and they have a mix of new and used merchandise. We weren't aware of it until we arrived, but the flea market had a fire back in March that damaged part of the indoor area. Fortunately, the fire was extinguished relatively quickly, so the fire damage was limited to a fairly small area. Unfortunately, smoke spread throughout the entire indoor area, and all 7 buildings had to be closed for cleaning and restoration.

Immediately after the fire, the market owners contacted the vendors and offered them all an outdoor space at no cost until the buildings could be restored and reopened. The outdoor portion of the market was only closed for one weekend following the fire.

Building 1, which was the farthest from the area of the fire, was reopened in May, and Buildings 2 and 3 were just reopened in late July. They expect the remaining 4 buildings to open within another month or so.

We first headed down the covered outdoor area toward the far end of the market. This is where most of the indoor vendors have temporarily relocated, and we recognized some of them from previous visits to the flea market. It was a cool morning so there weren't too many customers in the outdoor area yet.

Covered outdoor area at Caesar Creek Flea Market

When we got to the far end of the market, we couldn't see any fire damage apparent from the outside of the buildings, but we could see dumpsters between the buildings. We also saw where work has been going on inside.

We headed back toward the three buildings that were open and worked our way through those. The inside looked nice and bright after the renovations. Everything has been cleaned up and repainted, and all the pegboard dividers between the booths had been replaced.

Margery stopped at her favorite used book vendor. He used to have a large booth that encompassed 7 stalls, but now he had one temporary stall in the recently reopened Building 3.

Margery checking out used books

Margery found several books by one of her favorite authors. Even though she has a Kindle reader, she still buys some hard-copy books because not everything is available in Kindle format. She was happy to be able to support one of her favorite vendors.

Paul stopped at a vendor in Building 1 to check out electrical connectors, tools and hardware. He didn't find anything he couldn't live without, so we escaped without making a purchase.

Paul contemplates buying some electrical connectors

In addition to the indoor areas and a covered, outdoor area, there are also large vendor areas in the parking lot. After finishing up inside, we headed there next. By this time, it had warmed up significantly (Paul was wishing he had worn shorts), and the outdoor area was fairly busy.

Outdoor vendor area

The outdoor area also has a food service area. There was a very good bluegrass band playing when we walked by on our way back to the car.

Bluegrass band in the outdoor food area

After the flea market, we headed back to the campground for an afternoon of relaxation watching the Olympics. On Sunday, it was more relaxation watching the NASCAR race and more Olympics including the closing ceremonies in the evening. We also enjoyed watching the campground empty out as the weekend warriors headed back home.

Other than the flea market, we didn't have any activities planned for Caesar Creek. We drove to nearby Lebanon, OH on Monday to stop at Walmart and Kroger. Kroger is Margery's favorite grocery chain, and the one in Lebanon is particularly nice. It recently moved into much larger building that used to be a K-Mart.

On Tuesday, we had to run out to Lowe's in Wilmington to get materials for Paul to make a new tie-out chain for Freeway. The maintenance crew ran over the one we had with their mower while we were out on Monday and chopped it into little pieces. We use a custom-made tie-out chain that is shorter and lighter weight than the standard ones that are available because Freeway is so small.

Paul puttered around doing a couple of maintenance items on the car and the motor home, but we spent most of the rest of our time at Caesar Creek relaxing and enjoying the peace and quiet. One of the advantages to an almost-empty campground is the opportunity to see wildlife. Paul saw a doe and her two fawns walk by at the end of the road on a couple of mornings; and on Wednesday evening, they paid a visit to the site next to us. We watched them graze for several minutes before they moved on.

Doe and two fawns

On Thursday morning, we packed up, hitched up the car, made a stop at the dump station and headed out to our next destination. We'll tell you where that was in our next post.

Creation Museum

Rising Sun, IN - Events of Monday, August 6 to Thursday, August 9, 2012

We took our time leaving Still Waters Campground in Frankfort, because we only had about a 90-minute drive to our next stop. We pulled into Little Farm on the River RV Resort around noon. Little Farm on the River RV Resort is located on the Ohio River in Rising Sun, IN just to the southwest of Cincinnati. Rising Sun has mostly full hookup sites, although there are a few sites with water and electric only. There is free Wi-Fi that was fairly fast and reliable.

There are two camping areas - one about half way between the state highway and the Ohio River, and one about ¼ mile away on the banks of the river. Both sections have pull-throughs down the middle and back-ins along the edges. Some people like the riverside sites for the view, and some like the other sites because they are closer to the swimming pool and to the all the planned activities they have on the weekends.

The roads at Little Farm are dusty gravel. The pads are gravel, and the grassy sites are fairly widely spaced.

Our back-in site at Little Farm RV

Sites are $40 a night Thursday through Saturday and $33 during the week. There is also a 50% Passport America discount during the week, so the average cost for our stay of four nights was a little over $21 a night. They also offer a 10% Good Sam discount.

The campground was quiet when we were there in the middle of the week, but as we said, there are a lot of planned activities on the weekends and a lot of seasonals, so it could be zooy. Most of the trailers in the photo below looked like they belonged to seasonals.

Many seasonals at Little Farm RV

We had a site that backed up to the river; but unfortunately, there is a row of trees and dense underbrush along the bank, so we didn't have a clear view of the water. However, we still managed to see several tow boats with barges going up and down. This seems to be our year for rivers and barges.

Towboat and barges on the Ohio River behind our site

The reason we stopped in Rising Sun was to visit the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY. Petersburg is located in a little finger of Kentucky that is wedged in between the southeastern corner of Indiana and the southwestern corner of Ohio. It was across the Ohio River and a little to the north of where we were staying. We headed there on Tuesday morning.

Entrance to the Creation Museum

Creationism is the belief that the earth, mankind, and all the universe were created by God rather than occurring through random events and evolution. Creationism takes many forms from a strict interpretation of the Bible and a literal 6-day creation to Intelligent Design where God directed the process of natural selection. There are also many variations in between, but those who believe in creation share one basic idea - that life, even simple, single-cell organisms, is much too complicated to have occurred by chance. Attempts to explain the origin of the universe apart from the existence of a supreme being by means of something like the Big Bang Theory have one glaring problem - where did the matter and/or energy that was used to create the universe come from in the first place?

We arrived at the museum shortly after 10:00 AM. We had to wait in line about 10 minutes to get our tickets, then the line to get into the museum itself was just about as long. There is a $5 discount off the adult admission price on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and we were there on a Tuesday so the crowd was fairly large. Seniors and AAA members get a $5 discount every day. There were no lines when we left, so we recommend going around noon if you go on a Tuesday or Wednesday.

The Creation Museum also has an outdoor botanical garden, so we decided to see that first before the temperature got too hot and with the hope some of the crowd inside would dissipate later on. We headed across the floating bridge into the garden.

Floating bridge to the garden

After climbing a small rise on the other side of the bridge, we were greeted by a sea of flowers.

Flowers on the far side of the bridge

There was a koi pond with a waterfall, and the pond was surrounded by a Japanese garden. The waterfall looked a lot bigger and more powerful than it was thanks to a mist-generating nozzle at its base.

Waterfall in the Japanese garden

Koi pond

Another view of the koi pond

Next, we entered the tropical garden with its abundance of banana trees.

Banana trees in the tropical garden

Margery in the tropical garden

Deer statue in the botanical garden

Paul and Margery in the botanical garden

Margery with pink petunias and lime-green ornamental sweet potato vine

Cattails at the lake in the botanical garden

The Creation Museum also has several shows, some of which are included in the price of admission, and some of which are extra cost. One of the included shows is "Men in White," which is a multi-media presentation that tells the Biblical story of creation in a special-effects theater. There are flashing lights, wind, rain and seats that vibrate in conjunction with some of the loud, rumbling sounds. We were finished with the gardens at just about the right time to see the 11:15 showing of "Men in White," so we went into the museum and made our way to the theater. The special effects were a lot of fun and were on a par with anything Disney could do.

There is also a planetarium with several extra-cost shows and there was an extra-cost musical that featured live animals. We skipped the extra-cost shows and headed into the museum itself after seeing "Men in White".

Main hall at the museum entrance

The fossil record is important to the study of how the earth came to be, and the Creation Museum had many examples on display.

Sea urchin fossils

Display showing paleontologists uncovering a dinosaur fossil

Of course, dinosaurs are very popular with the kids, and the Creation Museum has plenty of them on display. The one shown below was an animatronic version that moved and roared, and there was even a special balcony that featured nothing but dinosaurs.

Animatronic dinosaur

The main part of the exhibit features a Walk Through Biblical History.

Adam naming the animals

Creationism as presented by the Creation Museum follows the Young Earth Theory, which says the earth is only thousands of years old, not billions. The museum presents credible theories to explain the discrepancy in estimated age that include explaining the flaws of radiometric dating. It's all very technical, but radioactive material decays over time, and radiometric dating basically measures the amount of radioactive material remaining in a sample to determine its age. The problem is we're not 100% sure how much radioactive material was there at the start, so calculating the percentage that is left requires a lot of assumptions.

Noah's flood also helps explain age discrepancies. For example, one may look at a canyon with a stream flowing at the bottom and say, "Wow! That little stream must have taken eons to carve that big canyon." However, if we consider relatively deep canyons were carved in a matter of days by melt water from glaciers following the eruption of Mount St. Helens, we can see large quantities of water from the Great Flood could carve huge canyons in a relatively short period of time.

As expected, there was a section of the museum devoted to Noah. A model of the cross section of the ark is shown below.

Model of the interior decks of Noah's ark

There was also a full-size display showing of a section of the ark, but it was filled with so many people we couldn't get a good photo.

The Creation Museum is very well done. We enjoyed our visit.

We relaxed around the motor home on Wednesday, made a Walmart run on Thursday and took off to our next destination on Friday. Stay tuned.