Cookout Stories 2009 Vol. 1.

In going with the stories I currently have pictures for, the first one that gets told is Yoteo's trip to the Creationist Museum. This story will cover the bookends of my portion of this trip. You can say my portion of the trip was Cinci - Hartford - Maine - Hartford - Cinci.

The Beginning: A Canuck and Q Face to Face.

When I met up with Yot, it was off an exit in extreme northern KY in a city called Covington. For those of you unfamiliar with this area, it's basically the part of Cincinatti that's on the KY side of the Ohio River. Yot was a little lost and if you've never been to Kaelis' house before, it's a little bit of a pain in the ass to find. Not because it's hidden or anything, but because the exit off of I-75 is just absolutely retarded and easy to miss if you're not looking for it.

I also like to say he got lost and ended up in KY, but that'd be a little untrue as I thought the I-74 to I-75 interchange was a lot further north and I told him to go south thinking he'd find the correct exit to Kaelis' house from there...

So to make things easy for him, I told him to take I-75 south until he crossed into KY, take the first exit, then meet me at the first gas station he found. I was still about 30 mins from him when we made this arrangement, so I couldn't tell him anything more specific.

He was easy enough to find.

Upon finding him, the first thing I did was shake his hand and...

"Nice to meet you, I gotta piss."

...and I ran off into the store behind us to find a bathroom.

After discovering the store behind us apparently is stuck in the 60s and had no public restroom, I went back outside and talked to Yot for a bit about what we could do since Kaelis wasn't going to be home for an hour or so (he was working). We decided that we'd go drop a car off at Kaelis' house then head to Wal-Mart so that Yot could find a smaller cooler and so I could relieve myself of the 44oz of Diet Coke I had consumed along the way to Cinci.

Thirty minutes later...we still have 30 minutes until Kaelis gets home and we're trying to figure out what to do. Yot had a brilliant idea...

Kaelis had two lawn chairs on his shady back porch.

It was a rather mild summer day.

Yot and I each had a cup.

Yot had a cooler full of beer from various micro-breweries he'd visited on his way down.

Nothing like sitting on a back porch drinking some cold beer from a gatorade bottle and a white castle cup at someone's house who wasn't home....

And thus...our trip got started in fantastic fashion. :)

(No pictures of this part unfortunately...but use your imaginations.)

The End: Qtipus + 'Canook' + Creationist Museum = ...?

Somewhere in his boring trip to Cinci, Yoteo came up with the bright idea of visiting the Creationist Museum in Covington, KY. The primary reason for this was comedy. When you're in the presence of religious fanatics, it's comedy gold. (If you're a religious fanatic...sorry, but I'm going to offend you from this point on.)

He apparently knew this museum was there whereas I had never heard of it. We were close enough to it that he justified the visit there by saying something along the lines of "I'm already here and I may never get a chance to see this again."

Now I've never been one that's studied religion, practiced it to any heavy degree or even bothered to learn the differences between the various types. I just know that religious fanatics are generally the reason most wars break out and that the reasons they do are generally on the extreme end of it. Creationism, from what I knew at the time, was on the extreme end of it. Creationism's arch enemy would be scientfic theory or evolution or Darwinism.

(I personally believe the truth is likely in the middle somewhere...)

So Yoteo wants something to make fun of and anyone who's been around me long enough knows I love to make fun of things. Since we're back in Cinci, it means we're about to part ways soon and the museum is basically on my way home (not so much for Yot, but only about 20 miles out of the way for him), I figured I may as well tag along and see what it's all about.



This would be the entrance. It doesn't really do justice to the sheer size of this building. We're probably about 200ft away from the entrance here(THAT'S RIGHT I SAID "ft" CANUCK. F*CK YOU AND YOUR METRIC SYSTEM). One of the things that instantly surprised us was the fact that it was Tuesday Morning about an hour before lunch and this place was packed. We had to park at the back end of the parking lot.

Once we got in, we go to the counter to buy up our tickets. The price to enter was a little surprising at $23 ea, but Yot was nice enough to pick up my ticket for me since I had bought his lunch/dinner a couple times along the trip.

At the counter, Yot hands his credit card to the lady and is asked for his zip code. The following conversation takes place...

Canuck: It's actually a postal code.
Lady: Oh you're from Canada?
Canuck: Yeah.
Lady: We've been getting a lot of Canooks in here lately.
Q: /snicker

About this time, she notices Yoteo's shirt. It's from the Penny Arcade...

Lady: I wish I...could...hate you to death? I don't get it.
Canuck: It's from a website called Penny Arcade.
Lady: Oh?
Canuck: Yeah have you ever heard of it?
Lady: No.

I took a couple steps away cause I knew it was going to be brutal hearing Yot explain this one to an employee at the Creationist Museum. I'm not sure what he said afterwards, but she appeared happy. Probably cause it's hard to get angry at a Canook.

So we go in...



This is the exhibit that's viewable from the waiting line.



One of the first things we see after we enter the main area.



Second thing we see. Take notice of the level of detail in that mannequin. This will be a theme throughout this museum.



Skeletal remains named "Lucy".



Paul.



The resurrection of Christ.



Isiah, Moses and David.



And the fanaticism begins...this is what we came for!



Selective messaging.



More selective messaging.



Information about the sea scrolls.



Another realistic mannequin depicting the rebuilding process of something...



Food.



Wait...naked mannequins...in a religious institution?



FFS A LITTLE PRIVACY PLEASE! I'M TRYING TO SIN!



SEE? IT'S ALL WOMAN'S FAULT!



About the only thing that religions across the world can agree on...



Yeah...God was pissed.



Thanks Eve. We could be prancing around naked, but noooooo...you just had to eat some fruit and bring it to Adam knowing damn well a man can only think with his stomach...



Now we get to plow fields and fend for ourselves...

Oh and those labor pains? God's punishment according to this museum.



Rawrs n' Stuf~™



NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooo~!



Ringth...er Methusala in his younger years. This guy actually bitched about the July update notes, tried to sell us his product, griped about our armor selection ("YOU WON'T DAMAGE A LETTUCE HEAD WITH THAT SORT OF SHIT") and waved his staff at us while yelling to get off his exhibit.



Noah's Ark. This is supposed to depict 1% of the Ark's total size. Picture doesn't really do the size of this exhibit justice, but let's just say...it's fkn huge.



Smaller, scaled down representation of the Ark's construction. Where did they plug in those power tools for such great looking lumber I wonder...



Ceiling Ark Builder is watching you masturbate...



Noah, where be all the sheep at?



No caption needed as this simply speaks for itself.



That's a huge boat.



Pretty.



Pill theory.



Skull of something I can't remember.



Can't remember what this was depicting either.



Awesome.



Ring's pet in statue form.



I'm in this picture to show the relative size of this exhibit.



I'm in this picture to show that my bald spot is brigher than the lights on this exhibit.

Also, it's hard to tell from the pictures, but the level of detail they put into these things is astounding. I ended up shining a keychain light of mine into the mouth of this Rex and they have the details of this thing all the way down into the throat.



More Dinos.



Triceratops skeleton (real deal...)



This is what they want you to believe when you've left this museum.



Obligatory Dragoon reference. It is an FFXI blog after all.



This is the scenery outside after you've finished the tour.



Canook + Scenery = homo.



Feeding fish.



Botched picture, but pretty anyway.



Lilypad flowers (I think...).



Everyone laugh as I nearly fall on my ass walking across a suspension bridge.



Canook + Q + scenery. No homo, I promise.

So we finished up our tour and headed out. We both left this museum a lot more impressed than we expected to be. We also both left this museum with a lot less comedy fodder than we were hoping for. Regardless of religious viewpoints, the money they put into this place is incredible. I wouldn't go as far to say it's worth $23 for admission, but if you're bored and in the region, definitely check it out.

This was also the point where we parted ways. Canuck began his 2-3 day drive back home and I began my 3-4 hour drive back home. These are the sort of trips that get talked about for years though. Next year's get together should be even larger as we're hoping some other friends from around the FFXI world can manage to make it.

Next week, the meat of the trip. :)