Wow

Needed a place to post this picture. Nice job, Yahoo!

Cleveland Rocks!

Our final stop on our whirlwind Labor Day travel bonanza was beautiful Cleveland, Ohio. Shockingly, this was our second trip to the Cleve this summer, and our experience made getting around the city easier. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice downtown Cleveland is, with interesting architecture, happening nightlife in the warehouse district, and interesting attractions and sights to see.

Having visiting Cleveland's most popular attraction (more on that later), we chose to branch out and see something new - the Great Lakes Science Center. Embracing our inner children, we went through nearly all of the museum's activities, trying our hand at conducting electricity, testing the laws of physics (and nearly getting sick from all the spinning), and attempted to learn more about the unique weather of the Great Lakes region, but that area was closed. After learning we were too old to enjoy the Polymer Funhouse, we decided to take in a flick at the Omnimax, the museum's six-story tall, domed Imax theater. With "Galápagos," we took a journey with marine biologists as they delve deep into the largely unknown waters surrounding the volcanic archipelago. Galápagos explores the natural wonders of a realm of which Darwin only scraped the surface. Wait... what was that you said? I thought Darwin was going to be wholly absent from this road trip...

Nope, there he is. Turns out that the Science Center actually had an entire exhibit dedicated to the naturalist who came up with those pesky theories called "evolution" and "natural selection." After spending most of Saturday at the Creation Museum discovering how God's word trumps human reason, you better believe we paid the extra $2 to see what good ole Charlie had to say.

The first display cases contained a large number of intact skeletons. It was particularly amazing to see that when you strip away all of the external layers of skin, hair, etc., the skeletons of animals as disparate as an ocelot, domestic cat, bulldog, dolphin, snake, and the monkey showed above are more similar than you might think.

The special exhibit detailed Darwin's life, explaining how he became the naturalist we all know him to be. Most interesting were tales from the five year expedition he took on the HMS Beagle. Particularly striking, however, was the surprising image of this naturalist, dedicated to exploring and discovering new species, often ate said species. Entirely fearless, Darwin tried everything that crossed his path. He cheerfully sampled iguanas, declaring "these lizards, when cooked, yield a white meat, which is liked by those whose stomachs soar above all prejudices." Interestingly enough, his strange culinary experiments sometimes worked against him. Darwin had been searching for two different types of rhea, a flightless bird native to South America. Having found several examples of the larger, greater rhea, Darwin failed to find the more elusive lesser rhea. One night, after stopping in Port Desire on the coast of Argentina, the ship's artist shot a small rhea. Thinking it was simply a young greater rhea, Darwin and the rest of the crew sat down to feast. Halfway through the meal, Darwin realized his mistake: this was in fact the lesser rhea he had been searching for! "It was cooked and eaten before my memory returned. Fortunately the head, neck, legs, wings, many of the large feathers, and a large part of the skin, had been preserved. From these a very nearly perfect specimen has been put together." Even so, Charlie, maybe you should stop eating your findings!

It seems that the curators of the exhibit couldn't resist just one crack at those wacky creationists. The last sign read: "Creationism, including intelligent design, does not offer a scientific alternative to the theory of evolution. By invoking the act of a Creator or intelligent designer as the explanation of life's diversity, creationism invokes a cause that lies outside our powers of observation and thus outside the realm of scientific inquiry. Boo yah.

After finishing up with Mr. Darwin, we headed back over to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Having just visited earlier this summer, we decided not to go through the exhibit again, instead simply attempting the overly crowded and disappointing gift shop.

All around Cleveland one can find elaborately decorated guitars, just like this one. This happened to have brought out on display in the lobby of the museum in honor of Michael Jackson.

We randomly happened upon the Cleveland National Air Show, going on all weekend at the lakefront airport. Since both the science center and the Rock Hall are right next to Burke Lakefront Airport, we managed to spy some pretty awesome aerial stunts, including one from this huge cargo plane.
... and these six jets...
After leaving the lakefront, we headed back downtown for the Taste of Cleveland food bonanza. On the way, we came upon this statue, which seemed to be a memorial of some sort.
We also happened upon the Free Stamp in Willard Park.
The Taste of Cleveland was... tasty... Located at the Time Warner Amphitheatre right on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, it provided lovely views of the city.

One of the many, many bridges along Cleveland's stretch of the Cuyahoga River. Even if this "river that caught fire" seemed perfectly serene, we more than welcome the chance to escape Ohio and head on home to Maryland.

The Creation Museum -- Petersburg, Kentucky

I apologize in advance for the long post, but there was no good way to break it up and I imagine this is the one everyone is most curious about. So here we go...

Before we could make our way to the Creation Museum, we thought about the history of our country and its connection to evolution and we came to the Scopes Monkey Trial. Since it was in 1925, we decided to get into the mood by going back in time to have breakfast at a mid-1920s Waffle House.

Breakfast finished, we drove on to Petersburg, Kentucky and right to the front doorstep of the Creation Museum.
Those signs on the doors ask the visitors to not say or wear anything offensive, lest they be ejected from the premises. We all had pro-Darwin t-shirts on, but we quickly changed into much less conspicuous clothing and walked inside to buy tickets.

After each shelling out $29 -- $22 for admission and $7 for the Planetarium show plus we also bought a $5 souvenir program -- we took one of those green-screen pictures that we would never buy and went into the main hall to find...

The first thing you see when you walk in is a happy scene of someone -- Eve? -- hanging out with a friendly velociraptor and watching over a pool filled with real fish and turtles. This isn't the first dinosaur we had seen though; there were some at the main gate, a model one outside for pictures, and a fake skeleton outside for more pictures. I'm not sure why, but the people who brought you the museum are obsessed with dinosaurs. Is it because the biggest question about their theory is how dinosaurs and people could coexist? Is it because dinosaurs are awesome? Either way, dinosaurs kept popping up here or there throughout the museum and on all of the literature and advertising. You'll see more of them later.

Before entering the actual exhibits, we caught two shows. One, "Men in White," is a multimedia presentation in which two angels teach us about creation and the philosophy behind the museum. They make fun of the dirty "evolutionsists" and play pranks on school teachers. To make the movie more exciting, the chairs shake when something big happens and during a discussion of the Flood, water shoots out of the chair in front of you and hits you in the face. Multiple times. Kind of a dick move, angels. I found it very hard to not start laughing out loud at everything, but they made enough jokes that I could get my laughter out without offending all of the other people, including the 40-or-so-person Mennonite group right behind us.

The second show we watched was the Planetarium. It didn't really make any sense, to be honest. They gave a legitimate show about the solar system, the distance between stars, galaxies, clusters, and so on. After showing how big the known universe is, they threw in something like, "Aren't we all lucky that with such a big universe, God made only us in His image?" Whatever, it was sort of boring. But on to the exhibition!

Dinosaurs again! The velociraptor and the sign next to it introduce the layout for the first and introductory portion of the museum. They introduce the difference between evolution and creationism by showing what "humans" think and what God says. As expected, they take the Bible as literally as possible in coming up with their theory. Well, sort of, as you'll see. We walked through, reading signs breaking down various topics such as the differences in theory over how the earth was created, where species come from, and how coal can exist when the planet is only 6,000 years old (the Flood waters were so powerful that they pressed organic matter into coal immediately). But why do we know so much about how humans think and so little about what God says? Well, it's because those dirty evolutionists control the curriculum and well:

So begins a walk through parts of the Bible -- we'll learn about some of the important characters we've heard of in the Old and New Testaments before we get into the story of creation. The philosophy of the museum is to teach through the use of what they call "the 7 C's": Creation, Corruption (Adam's sin), Catastrophe (the Flood), Confusion (everything after the Flood), Christ, Cross, and Consummation (the end of the world). First, let's meet the crew, starting with the Jews. It's Isaiah! We know all about him because his prophesies talked about the Messiah and laid the groundwork for Jesus. You knew that, right? Here he is, carrying a torah and wearing tallit because, well, they wore tallit back then? Tallit that have prayers on the back of the neck? Oops! Guess they missed a little of their bible history!It's Moses! He's carrying the tablets that have Hebrew on them (you can click on the picture to enlarge it). Hebrew with vowels. Vowels that didn't exist back then. Plus, they stuck vowels on Y-H-V-H. But hey, this isn't a Jewish museum, so stop being so picky!King David! Good life-like mannequins, huh? Here's Paul of Tarsus. You can tell he was a New Testament character because his skin is lighter and his nose isn't as big. I wish I were kidding...

Let's just fly past that and look at some signs about how powerful God is and how people try to deny Him. For instance: You remember the part in the Book of Esther when God exposed Haman's plot to Esther, right? Wait, God isn't mentioned at all in the Book of Esther? It's not like anyone's going to check to make sure.

Not pictured here was an amusing blurb about how evil The DaVinci Code is. After learning about that and some of the other ways people try to deny God (stem cells!), we get a look at what the world is beginning to look like because God is so hated everywhere.For instance, there's nasty graffiti everywhere. We also saw some videos about fake schools denying God and a young woman talking about how excited she is to have an abortion. Indeed, the church is being destroyed by evolutionists. Yes, they get back to that. So let's get into those "7 C's" mentioned above by watching a short film about the six days -- the literal six days -- of creation and then it's off to the Garden of Eden to catch up with Adam.Here we see Adam, happily naming all of the creatures. He's holding onto a lamb, there are some deer and some birds hanging around, he's playing nice with a cougar and off to his left, is that --What the heck is a penguin doing in the Garden of Eden?!?Also, there's an ankylosauraus hanging around. Just chilling. See, the dinosaurs were cool with Adam and Eve because there was no death or disease in Eden. The dinosaurs were all vegetarians and everyone got along famously. Yes, all of the dinosaurs were vegetarians. Just because they had sharp teeth doesn't mean they ate meat. It just means they had sharp teeth! The last two sentences were taken word for word from the museum's website.Oh yeah, Adam and Eve were happy together as can be seen in the sign above. No gay marriage!

But all was not well in Eden, as the serpent -- not pictured, but it was pretty cool looking -- got Adam and Eve to disobey God's direct order and the humans were kicked out of paradise. Here comes death and disease and having to work the earth. Bad times. Do you know what else came? Weeds! According to a sign at the museum, weeds exist because God has to give us plants since they don't just exist as we want them like in Eden. Since we can't farm as fast as God can create, weeds are around.

Now, with Cain having killed Abel and wandering the earth, it's time for people to start populating the planet. But how??? There was only that first family. Where could any offspring come from? Simple: incest.

Click on the above picture and read everything. Essentially, they are saying that #1) all marriage is incest; #2) Abraham was incestuous -- he wasn't, Sarah wasn't actually his half-sister, he just fooled a Pharaoh into thinking that, but this isn't a Jewish museum! -- so it's okay; #3) incest wasn't so bad back then because it was less likely that your kid would have three heads since there weren't too many genetic mutations yet; #4) the same as #3 except no gay marriage!; #5) they didn't have premarital sex, so who really cares; and #6) you're a sinner anyway so stop asking so many questions already! Seriously, go back and read the actual text of #6 again. It is the greatest thing I have ever read in a museum. Ever.

The sin from Adam's offspring kept getting worse and worse so it became time for God to do something about it. Enter Noah.

The exhibits regarding Noah and the Flood make up the largest part of the museum's exhibits because they form the crux of the explanations for nature as it is today. First, we get to see some people building the ark and you can even walk inside a scale model!Here's a cross-section of the ark. How did he fit dinosaurs on the ark? They were young ones, so they weren't so big. Also, a lot of dinosaurs got left behind and the Flood waters crushed them into the dirt, creating fossils. So there, paleontologist guy! Onwards to some dioramas about Noah loading the ark and setting sail.Here, Noah loads the ark with two of every kind of animal, including giraffes that are larger than elephants and dinosaurs. Also notice the crane that Noah used to build the ark, just to the right of the ramp.Crap, that Noah is leaving us behind! He needs to come get us. We're not going to last long with those tigers on this rock!

Why is a man fighting a bear? A man is fighting a bear! They're boxing each other!

So the Flood covered the earth. There was one big continent called Rodinia and then the waters covered the planet and transformed it into Pangaea. Underwater, Pangaea broke up into the continents we know today. Finally, the waters receded and the ark and its inhabitants ended up in Turkey. But everything was dead, right? How did animals get to the other continents?Oh, okay, the animals rode rafts from continent to continent. That makes total sense. (Note: we learned later after seeing an exhibit on Darwin at a real science museum in Cleveland that rhinoceri -- discussed in the above picture for Africa and India -- were particularly important because Darwin focused on them.)Still, how have we ended up with a bunch of different species with older species having gone extinct? God made the changes. Have to have happened that way since the planet is only 6,000 years old and adaptation happens too slowly. Because, you know, it's not like bacteria can evolve in a matter of hours or anything.

That leads us to a discussion of natural selection, which the Creation Museum differentiates from evolution and says is okay. God gave creatures the ability to adapt to their environment, but that doesn't mean they completely change species. So some equines that rafted to North America are brown, while some that went to Africa developed stripes for camouflage, but that doesn't mean they are different species, with the definition being that different species can't interbreed. More on that later.


So the animals spread out, but what happened to the humans? At the Tower of Babel, God gave them different languages and left them to spread out over the world.Different languages, like the original language that spawned Hebrew! The original language that was exactly like Hebrew, except the letters were all backwards or upside-down! For the record, it was at this sign that I finally started getting a headache and was ready to be done with the whole thing.


Luckily, there wasn't much left to the main exhibits. Finished with the first four "C's", the final three -- Christ, Cross, and Consummation -- were all dealt with in a short movie about how Jesus came to make up for Adam's sin. There wasn't much objectionable about the movie other than it being fairly boring, though I'm sure I wasn't really the target market. Done with the exhibits, there were just a few more side things to visit, starting with a bunch of model dinosaurs.



They say this because a dinosaur shows up in Job. Well, not really a dinosaur, a Behemoth, but the word "dinosaur" didn't exist back then, so it was totally a dinosaur.

The "Living Fossils" part of this sign (click to enlarge) killed us. Dinosaurs lived with crocodiles and people live with crocodiles, so people must have lived with dinosaurs! Transitive property, son.Finally, as we were about to leave the actual museum building, we came across the infamous dinosaur with the saddle. To be fair, it's really more of a gag photo opportunity for kids than any kind of real representation. Still funny, though.

So we left the building and walked around the garden, headed towards the Petting Zoo. One of the main points of this area, besides giving kids something else to do, is to get back to that idea of how different species do not develop from natural selection. If a horse, a donkey, and a zebra are all different species, then one shouldn't be able to breed them together. To show this idea of evolution to different species is false, the Petting Zoo features a "zorse" -- a zebra/horse hybrid -- and a "zonkey" -- a zebra/donkey hybrid. Makes total sense until you learn -- not from the museum but by looking up zonkeys in Wikipedia -- that zorses and zonkeys can't actually breed, so they'd be left behind by natural selection. So, it doesn't prove anything. But they got a zebra to do it with a horse and a donkey, so awesome!

But then everything went horribly wrong...I was trying to gently pet the zonkey, when it attacked! Actually, it tried to run away and it pinned my arm between its neck and a fencepost. It ended up scraping my arm up pretty badly and coming closer than I would have liked to breaking it. This is an action shot from when it actually happened. Angry at the zonkey -- also called a "zebrass", seriously -- I decided to try its friend.I bought some food from a dispenser and fed the zorse, which was much nicer. The zonkey came over to get some food, too, but I wouldn't give it any. I felt bad and ended up letting it lick my hand.I would have petted this camel, but it was too big and it freaked me out. It kept staring at me.

Finally, everything ended up beautifully when we got to pet a wallaby. It was really cute and sleepy and its fur was really soft. I don't know what wallabies have to do with anything, but it was a nice ending to a long-awaited experience at the Creation Museum.

In all, it was a bit scary to see how much people were eating up the stuff the museum was dishing out, but it was nice to see how crazy all of it sounded. Going in, I was worried that their presentation would sound somewhat reasonable and would make it easier for sane people to be convinced. Nope, it was as crazy as I had hoped for.

Totally worth the trip.

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center - Cincinnati, Ohio

Outside the museum, located on the riverfront and in between the baseball and football stadiums.















The beautiful Rag-a-non is located right at the beginning of your tour around the museum. The artist worked on this for 35 years, sewing each panel by hand. The piece tells the story of African American history, beginning in the upper left corner with Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, continuing with the Middle Passage to the Americas and the author's own family's history.















The Middle Passage - note the depiction of the ship as a monster eating the captives.















The faces of the Underground Railroad.















A slave pen, built in the early 1800s and recovered from a farm in Mason County, KY. The structure was used as a holding pen by Kentucky slave trader, Capt. John W. Anderson, to temporarily keep enslaved people being moved further south for sale. The slave pen played an integral role in the greater story of the internal slave trade in America.















Interior shot of the Slave Pen. The structure had two floors, with the men chained on the second story (you can see the iron rings still embedded in the beams) and the women on the lower level, cooking for the men. The slaves were often packed tightly into the building with little room to move.















Another exhibit in the museum highlights the efforts of abolitionists to help slaves escape, as well as the bravery and perseverance shown by those who tried to make their way to freedom. One successful man was Henry "Box" Brown, who in 1849 escaped Virginia by having himself nailed into a wooden box and shipped to Philadelphia. They even let you simulate the experience, albeit for a much shorter time than "Box" Brown's 27 hour journey. Josh, who is approximately the same size as "Box" Brown, tried it out.















At one point in the exhibit, following an exploration of the Great Compromise of 1850, kids were allowed to write notes to express their feelings about the question, "Did the Great Compromise of 1850 help to mend the rifts between the slave and free states, or did it make things worse?" This was one child's answer: Slavery is rong and wites should never treat blacks rong."

Just one example of the hands-on nature of this museum.















The Freedom Center lies only a short distance from the shore of the Ohio River with Kentucky on the opposite side. It is no coincidence that this museum stands here, right on the border between a slave state (Kentucky) and a free state (Ohio). Because of its location, Cincinnati was known as the Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad.