The Ark Encounter

For the past couple of years, my husband has wanted to travel to Kentucky to see the life-size Ark. While I thought it would be fun to do, I hadn’t been able to commit to any time because of my mother’s illness several states away.

When the time finally came, I wasn’t looking forward to the eight plus hour drive after making two eight hour trips every month for the past year to handle my mother’s personal affairs after she passed.

When my husband said it was time and he wanted to go, I recommended we go in the fall so there wouldn’t be as many people. (My husband doesn’t like crowds because of his issue with trying to navigate through them with his bad leg and foot.)

He agreed and made all the arrangements for us to go right after labor day.

I dragged my feet getting ready for the trip on a Monday morning. At one point, we almost canceled the trip because we both were feeling a little under the weather.

Because it would be only a four-day trip, I decided to pack light including the snacks I normally bring with us. I don’t, however, skimp on always having sufficient water with us. It’s heavy and a pain to cart around, but it’s worth it in order to be hydrated. We usually buy a case of Smart water and load it into the trunk, but making sure we put a few bottles in the fridge before we leave.

The Ark was out in the middle of nowhere. As a result, our hotel was about an hour away so that meant another hour of driving to get to the location.

Like many theme parks, the parking area is far from the actual Ark and you take a bus to get to it. You can see the Ark in the distance, but it doesn’t look very big… until you get up close and personal.

I’ve read the Bible story a ton of times and could never visualize how truly mammoth the structure was. No wonder it took Noah all those years to build it!

The inside is spectacular. (But there are no live animals, only representations of some of them.) When I pondered the amount of food and water that was needed to keep those animals (and the eight humans) alive for all those months Noah and his family were on the ship, it’s truly astounding.

Consider when a cage or urn may have been broken and they had to repair it. Did they have the facilities to handle those issues?

There were many exhibits on how they lived on the ark and what their living quarters may have looked like. We don’t know for sure, but God is able to do all things so I believe He may have put the animals into a state of hibernation while they were one the ship. But who knows? It’s a question for God Himself, when we get to heaven. (And I have a LOT of questions for Him, too!)

I won’t go into detail on all we saw because it would spoil it for you if you decide to make the trip. I’m just whetting your appetite to think about whether you want to see it or not.

If you live in the eastern half of the United States, it’s well worth the trip.

All in all the trip was fantastic… until the last day.

On the last day before we came home, we both tested positive for COVID so we are still getting over the virus. We are doing much better than the first week when we returned.