EventsSkepticism

Paranormal Road Trip: Day 4 Events in KY—Creation Museum & Haunted Distillery

Rebecca, Jon, and Richard have been on the road since Saturday, enduring long stretches of highway, gas station food, and the inevitable road trip leg cramps all for the sake of investigating some of the weirdest places the eastern U.S. has to offer. From a town full of “psychics” to a “haunted” nightclub, their journey to CSICon has given new life to scare quotes. Today’s stops in Kentucky will be no different. Find out where they’re headed and where you can meet up with them after the jump.

No trip through bizarro world is complete without a stop at the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum, which manages to conflate billions of years into about 6,000. But this is actually Good News for the Paranormal Road Trip crew. In Answers in Genesis time, the several hours that would ordinarily be required to tour all the exhibits should take only seconds, leaving them plenty of time to spend sampling the bourbon and ghosts at their next stop, the Buffalo Trace Distillery.

 

Meet Jon, Rebecca, & Richard Tonight in Louisville, KY!

After a day full of stops that will surely test their tolerance, the travelers are spending the evening at a public event in Louisville, organized by Laurie Tarr of the Louisville Area Skeptics.

 

Where: Patrick O’Shea’s, 123 W. Main St., Louisville, KY (map)

When: Oct. 23, 8 pm

More info!

 

You can also follow along on Twitter to see pics and to get the latest news of the trip, including a possible surprise stop being added to the itinerary. Check out @CSIRoadTrip, as well as @RichardWiseman, @RebeccaWatson, and @JonRonson.

 

DAY 4, STOP 1: Answers in Genesis Creation Museum, Petersburg, KY

The Creation Museum is like an elaborate fantasy RPG set in a time-bending alternate universe where science is practiced backwards, from conclusion to “evidence,” dragons are real, and answers don’t require questions. Witness children playing alongside dinosaurs, then experience the building of Noah’s ark, a TARDIS-like structure that could fit way more inside than you might think. But not the dinosaurs. They drowned. Or the children playing with them. They drowned too. In fact, pretty much all the people on earth were deliberately drowned. But it’s OK. A lot of them were probably just women anyway.

It’s too bad that Rebecca, Richard, and Jon won’t be able to take all the different workshops. The one for kids about how humans didn’t descend from apes is taught by experts, including a woman whose qualifications are that she “was raised in Africa (where she saw many monkeys).” But they—and you!—can always download the many gaming guides to this alternate universe from the workshops page, especially to learn the many ways in which science and magic mean the exact opposite than they do in ours. You don’t have to go to the Creation Museum to play this RPG. People are playing it all over the world already.

 

DAY 4, STOP 2: Haunted Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, KY

Buffalo Trace Distillery seems like an interesting place to visit, with or without the ghosts. It has been in operation for more than 200 years, even continuing during Prohibition (for “medicinal purposes”), making it the oldest continuously operating distillery in the U.S. It’s known for its award-winning varieties of bourbon more than its ghosts, which were made famous by—who else?—SyFy’s Ghost Hunters, although Kentucky’s own “certified” ghost hunter Patti Starr was there first, it seems. Maybe her sightings didn’t lead to the same level of paranormal PR because she was hunting out of season. <Sad trombone>

The road trip crew will no doubt get the detailed ghost stories during their tour and interviews with the people who work there. Although there are reportedly several spirits hanging around the various old buildings on the property, the main ghost is Col. Albert Bacon Blanton, a “bourbon aristocrat,” who is responsible for many of the distillery’s innovations as well as keeping it going during Prohibition and the World Wars. He built and lived in the Stony Point Mansion, one of the buildings on the property that is reportedly the most haunted.

But unlike the stories behind many reported hauntings, his is not at all tragic. He loved the place, which is why, according to the distillery, he decided to keep hanging around.

After getting to the bottom of this bourbon mystery, Richard, Rebecca, and Jon will be heading to the public event in Louisville, then leaving bright and early tomorrow for the final leg of their trip, which will end in Nashville after a stop at the Bell Witch Cave in Adams, TN. So those of you lucky people who get to attend CSICon (yes, this is my jealous font) can hear all the stories at the CSI Roadtrip discussion on Friday. More details about the Bell Witch and CSICon in tomorrow’s post.

 
Image credits: Ryan Hartkopf, David Berkowitz, Dave Whelan.

Melanie Mallon

Melanie is a freelance editor and writer living in a small town outside Minneapolis with her husband, two kids, dog, and two cats. When not making fun of bad charts or running the Uncensorship Project, she spends her time wrangling commas, making colon jokes, and putting out random dumpster fires. You can find her on Twitter as @MelMall, on Facebook, and on Instagram.

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