Our hotel was literally next door to the parking lot. Easiest commute ever. Oh. Did I mention we were paying a visit to The Ark Encounter? Wasn’t on our intent list for this trip, but hey … why not? It was only four or five hours away.
The hotel was amazing. Absolutely best ever, and really set the bar high going forward. Which proved to be kind of sad. The very next hotel we checked into was in a small town in Kentucky called Corbin. Yep. Same town that held the amazing Colonel Sanders museum we stopped at earlier in the week. This hotel was among the lower end of middle quality. In fact the first room we were issued still had food in the fridge, the lamp didn’t work, and in general hadn’t been cleaned properly. They switched us right away. The second was adequate, but there were a few annoying issues. No luggage holder. The battery cover on the remote was gone. But it was clean. So we stayed. Well, after we went to Cracker Barrel for supper. That brightened our afternoon somewhat. Mainly because our waitress was named Heaven. Hard to go wrong in the presence of Heaven.
But back to the day’s activities. We piled into one of the parking lot buses with a host of other early arrivals. And sure enough, after a brief journey through wooded hills, we pulled up into the presence of the life-sized replica of the massive earliest ever cruise ship. Pretty impressive.
We took advantage of every photo op we could on our way in. My favorite part of the long walk were the large steles (stela?) they had erected along the path. They told the story of creation up to the flood in pictograph images. Kind of like oversized visual verses. Loved it.
Inside, the ark was set up as a combination shopping mall, food court and visual educational experience. It was fully three stories tall. Cages lined all the floors, with catwalks that could have been used to deliver food. An intricate water delivery system had been worked out as well. They even dealt with waste removal. Pretty impressive. Among the animal species included in cages (replica animals, of course) were basic species of dinosaurs as well as the more recognizable species not yet extinct.
Back outside, the ark was surrounded by other encounters. We strolled through the small zoo. They do offer camel rides, but we weren’t there at the right times. There was a virtual reality program and live animal shows as well. And how about a zip line for the more adventurous (not us on this day. My back and Chris’ heart both screamed “No!”). For the younger set, there was a huge playground with lots of climbing apparatuses. And the last thing in the big circle (other than the restaurants run by Noah’s family - we ate lunch at his wife’s buffet place) was none other than an old-timey carrousel. No one was around except the lonely young man assigned to work there, so we hopped on a dinosaur and rode around in circles for a while. By the time in ended, the guy had a line waiting. You’re welcome.
I did manage to rescue one of the actual descendants of the very first giraffes that disembarked this ark. That’s “this” ark. From what I saw, there were now hundreds of the foot-tall hybrids available for adoption. If I can remember, I’ll call him Gorman (pronounced “Jorman”). Gorman Giraffe.
And that brought us back to our hotel for the night and our encounter with Heaven. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.
2 Corinthians 10:5 says, We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Father, thank you for the ministry this ark place has. Draw people there who need to hear the gospel as presented several ways there. Amen.
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