Creation Museum & Big Bone Lick

Kentucky - September 2007

Another business trip that spanned a weekend . . . This time in northern Kentucky, just south of Cincinatti. They were suffering from a drought. It hadn't rained in nearly 2 months.



In May, the Creation Museum in Petersburg opened for business. Its primary goal is to teach the Bible's account of earth's history as absolutely true and factual. They had other points to make, but this was the main one.

It was a big place.


No need for fig leaves.



Want to see more?

I never heard it in school either. The universe is only 6000 years old, and all the fossils and huge canyons were made by the Great Flood 4300 years ago.

They had a nice botanical garden there, but the drought had wasted a lot of it. These waterlilies were struggling.


Back in the parking lot, expressions of faith were much more straight-forward.





Less than a half hour away is Big Bone Lick State Park . . . offering hellbound non-believers an alternate view of natural history, and some kick-ass souvenirs. (The Creation Museum had NO shot-glasses.)


About 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice-age, mastadons, woolly mammoths, giant ground sloths, etc. came here to lick salt. Big mammals crave it in summer. Some got stuck in the bogs and mud, and their big bones were later found here, preserved very nicely in the salty ground.

You can see the salt in some of the streams.


They had no animatronic dinosaurs, like at the musuem. They stuck a few fake critters in the mud to make their point.



The park also has a little lake. I had a nice hike around it. Thanks to the drought, there were few mosquitos.



This guy posed nicely.


The beavers had downed a lot of trees. They were still at it.



I didn't see their dam. Maybe the drought drained it.



In a drying riverbed, these mud frogs were contributing little bones to Big Bone Park.


A little girl was nice to pose one for me.


Two days before I left, it finally rained. The grass turned green again. Everyone sighed a breath of relief.

(Kentucky - September 2007)

Bubble clouds

On August 23, 2007, an intense rainstorm flooded much of my northwest Chicago 'burbs. I got this shot of it, as it moved on at sunset.



BTW: They're called "mammatus clouds" . . . boob clouds?

(Fox River Grove - 8/23/07)

Blue Ridge Rocks

On a business trip to North Carolina, I had a chance on the weekend to drive over to the Blue Ridge Mountains. I just cruised around all day in the rental car and took in a few sights.


On a recommendation from a local, I began by checking out Blowing Rock.



This is the rock that blows.


It's named after a native American legend that goes kind of like this...

A Chickasaw chieftan was fearful for his lovely daughter, because she had attracted the admiration of a white man. He journeyed far from the plains to bring her to a tall mountain. He left her there to be cared for by a squaw mother (an elder woman of her tribe). One day the girl was daydreaming in loneliness on the mountain's cliffs. She saw a Cherokee brave (warrior) wandering in the wilderness far below. She playfully shot an arrow in his direction. The flirtation worked! He soon appeared at her wigwam, and he romanced her with songs of his land. They soon became lovers. Together, they wandered the pathless woodlands and the crystal streams, bound by ever-strengthening love.

One day a strange reddening of the sky brought the two lovers to a great rock on top of the mountain where she was exiled. To the brave, it was a sign of trouble. It told him that his people were at war. He knew he must return home to help his people with the fight.

She begged him not to leave her. The brave, torn by conflict of duty and heart, leaped from the great rock into the wilderness far below. The girl was grief-stricken. She fell to her knees and wept and prayed to the Great Spirit to return her lover. She remained like this, weeping and praying, for many days and nights.

One night the sky again became red, and a great wind blew up the mountain's side and over the rock, where she still knelt grieving. A gust of wind blew her lover back to the top on the rock, and into her arms. From that day, a perpetual wind has blown up onto this rock from the valley below.



Next, I went down to Grandfather Mountain, the tallest and oldest in the Appalachain chain.



Near the top was a suspension bridge that lead to an outcropping with great views.








The trails were great. I wish I'd had more time for them.




They had a "habitat area" with bears, deer, eagles, otters, and lions. I could only get a decent shot of this guy.



The sun was getting low, so I had to race through this pretty park called Linville Falls.

Hmmm... Over or under?





Here are some other sights I saw on the Blue Ridge Parkway and other roads...


A happy house in the college/hippie town of Boone



A roadside rest area with a path down to a pretty little stream



UFO clouds near sunset


(Blue Ridge Mountains - May 2007)

Cherry Blossoms

On the same day as last year, 4/22, I went to the Chicago Botanic Garden. Lauren came too! Spring came later this year. We could see the early bloomers more. A perfect early spring day . . .










Early cherry blossoms





And plum



Blooms!






Discipline






A Japanese legend says that zig zag bridges can't be crossed by evil spirits. It works! There was not one single demon on the entire island.








A very young jogger




Patiently waiting for his owner to return?


I'm sure he'll find home.

(Chicago Botanic Garden - 04/22/2007)