Day 1 – Drive to Shelbyville, IN

Saturday, June 29, 2019

It was 11:30 pm on Friday, by the time I had completed all of the chores in preparation for leaving. I didn’t wake up until 6 am on Saturday and by 7:15 am I left my house. By the time I reached the Peace Bridge at 8 am there was a traffic jam. Both lanes of traffic on the bridge heading to the US were full of cars stopped on the bridge, which was blocking my access to the Nexus booths. There was almost enough time to finish a crossword or Sudoku puzzle while I inched forward in the stop and crawl traffic to the Nexus entrance. When I finally reached the border guard 25 minutes later, he immediately told me I could go without asking me any questions.

As would be expected of me, there were some impromptu changes to the start of my trip. The drive was very comfortable and uneventful and I was enjoying some music, my Gatorade G2, sucralose-infused, grape flavoured water, as well as, the many snacks I had been given, when I started to think of a possible side trip.

My friends, Pete & Kathy Roethler, live in Strongsville and if I stopped there, it would be a detour that would extend my drive by 24 minutes, however, as I arrived in Ohio, I had ‘ Siri ‘ send them a text asking if they were at home and if they were available to go out for lunch. Pete suggested that I have l lunch at their house so I changed the destination on my Google Maps to their house and I arrived there at noon. They had prepared a wonderful lunch and we were able to have a very nice impromptu visit. By the time I left, an hour later, I was fed up, or more correctly, well fed.

I drove southwest and decided to visit the Creation Museum in Bullittsville, Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. This location is at the borders of three states. Within a few miles of the museum, I drove from Ohio to Indiana and then Kentucky.

It was 5 pm when I arrived at the museum and I felt that It was much larger than I had expected it to be.

The entrance cost was $35/adult and as I expected, there were depictions and displays of creation, as well as, comparisons to the theory of evolution, however, there were a lot of things there that I didn’t expect. They had a whole section on dragons and written material on dragons, as well as depictions of dinosaurs. They also had a displays of rocks, minerals and fossils.

There were several animations.

Outside, there were beautiful gardens.

a zip line.

camel rides and animal experience ( zoo )

and a children’s adventure area

I watched 2 videos, one of which was a 3-D presentation on the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a new addition to the museum, which is a building that is a replica of Noah’s Ark and it is 500 ft long. They had a video showing how the Ark Encounter was built using time lapse photography. It was 45 miles south of the museum and I wouldn’t make it there in time to see it. If you look closely at the picture, you can barely see the people on the ground.

I left the museum at 7 pm, knowing that I might have some trouble finding a room for the night, since this is the busiest time of the year for hotel bookings. All of the hotels in the area that I had checked, had no vacancies, so I decided to start driving west and try my luck a little farther away. I checked some hotels along my route without any luck, but I finally found a room in Shelbyville, Indiana and it was almost 9 pm by the time I checked into my room.

Once I had checked in, I immediately started to look for a room at my next destination and I was able to book a room in Springdale, Arkansas.

The temperature during the day was very comfortable. It was 23 C ( 73 F ) when I left my house and warmed up to 33 C ( 91 F ) by noon. I encountered a little rain in a few areas but it was mostly overcast and very warm, although most of my time was spent in my air-conditioned car.