Something different in kentucky

We are a little tired of running around looking at real estate, so we have played tourist for the past 2 days here in Kentucky! It has been HOT and humid here, so going somewhere inside has been the name of the game! Yesterday we went to the Ark Encounter, a full size recreation of the Ark built by Noah, based on information from the Bible.

It’s HUGE: 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, 51 feet high. It was built with 3.3 million feet of timber, and is the largest timber-frame structure in the world. The exhibit did take some artistic license when needed to help explain something, but it gave a good explanation of how Noah and his family could have cared for all those animals. As we were exiting the ark it poured! The wind was howling and the lightning and thunder scared some of the kids around us- everyone retreated back into the ark- rather ironic! If you are ever in Kentucky, I recommend you stop!

Today we went to the National Museum of the US Air Force. So a 2-hour drive to Dayton, Ohio:

We crossed into Ohio in Cincinnati, and it has a great skyline:

Note River-Front Stadium on the left- and for you sports fans, here’s another shot:

Then on to Dayton to the National Museum of the United States Air Force:

This museum is HUGE! It is made of 4 giant hangars that are full of planes – in fact, there are 360 planes, and missiles in those 4 hangars. It is divided into 8 sections: Early flight, which covers Wright brothers, zeppelins, and flight through WWI; WWII, including all of the countries involved; Korean War; Southeast Asia, including Viet Nam; Cold War Gallery; Missiles; Presidential planes; and Space/ Research and Development. Each gallery had real planes- not models. Here are just a few pictures, but there are hundreds of planes in this museum:

This is a recreation of the Memphis Belle, which was in the WWII gallery- you may have seen the Memphis Belle in old movies.

Under the wing of a B-52. This plane is soooo big!

A Stealth Bomber

This is Air Force One for JFK and Johnson. It is the plane that brought JFK back to Washington after he was assassinated in Dallas. They had 3 earlier Presidential air planes (they weren’t called Air Force One yet) from FDR, Truman and Eisenhower- these were all much smaller. Here is a panoramic shot from the Cold War gallery:

This really is just to give you an idea of the vastness of this museum- and this is only one of the galleries!

And here is a sculpture from the Memorial Garden:

Back at the campground tonight they had fireworks- and they were awesome! There is a small lake, with an island in the middle and lots of ducks and geese, and they set the fireworks off on the other side of the lake. the poor ducks and geese made a bee-line away from the fireworks, and we enjoyed a terrific fireworks show- I thought they were showing the grand finale 3 times- the show was that good! This show, done by the campground, was one of the best we have seen!