After picking up our friend Martynas from his hotel in Cincinnati, we ended our visit to the city in the same way that we started it: a trip to Jungle Jim's International Market! However, this time we checked out the second store in Eastgate, rather than the one in Fairfield.
We had to unexpectedly drive into Kentucky from Ohio to get there, and then reenter Ohio again to get to this store, since the state borders weave around the Ohio River. The good thing about this is that Lisette finally got to take a photo of the Ohio state sign, since our first encounter was so underwhelming that we missed the tiny sign.
The Eastgate store for Jungle Jim's looked much smaller, as it's in a strip mall with many other shops rather than engulfing entire acres for itself. While it was still impressive to see it--and we saw new theatrical displays for countries including the Philippines (a colorful Filipino jeepney above its food section), as well as interactive displays for brands like Kellogg's that included the Tony the Tiger (to paraphase the character, "he's grrrrreat!"), we definitely recommend the Fairfield store for the size and spectacle of it.
Ventriloquist Heaven in Vent Haven
And with that, we left Ohio and arrived in Kentucky, state #29 on this trip! We had planned to visit the Vent Haven Museum, the world's only museum dedicated to ventriloquial figures and memorabilia, located 5 miles south of Cincinnati in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. It turns out that we needed to book tickets in advance (they cost $15 each). There was a maximum capacity of 10 guests, and they had 3 tickets left for the day--perfect! The museum is open from May to September, and tickets need to be purchased in advance.
The museum has some parking behind it, but it can't accommodate RVs, so we had to park on the street (it's a residential area). The museum was founded by William Shakespeare Berger (who preferred to be known as W.S. Berger), who was an amateur ventriloquist and ventriloquy enthusiast. He purchased his first puppet in 1910, and continued to collect puppets until his death in 1972, and the museum opened the year after with his collections. Today, there are over 1,200 puppets in the museum, and we saw 600 displayed.
The tour began by us watching a video that provided an overview of ventriloquy and the many famous ventriloquists over the years performing, including Shari Lewis (Lamb Chop), Jeff Dunham and Willie Tyler. There are several rooms that we wandered through, starting with a room that had puppets from the Vaudeville era (including a couple of spooky ones with just the detached heads, glass eyes that would people would have worn as prosthetic eyes back in the day, and realistic features that created a very eerie, "Uncanny Valley" reaction by most of us! The docent told us about the history of the museum, the puppets (and how, out of respect for the ventriloquists who owned them, the puppets can't be used by anyone else), and the stories behind the puppets and the ventriloquists. There were literally walls lined with hundreds of puppets across many rooms, including puppets that have been donated from all over the world--including Australia, the Philippines, Japan and others. As we got to the more recent puppets, they started to look less creepy, as they were soft puppets that weren't all humanlike, but more like stuffed animals.
Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable and we could tell he was also very passionate about ventriloquy. Apparently it's a stipulation of the museum that guides shouldn't be ventriloquists themselves, but we could tell that our docent was a bit of an amateur ventriloquist! He was super knowledgeable about the puppets (while there wasn't enough time, he probably knew the stories of all 600 on display), and brought this energy and enthusiasm to the tour.
Ark & RV Park
We next drove to Ark Encounter in Kentucky, a massive ship with 3 decks that's based on the Biblical tale of Noah's Ark, with interactive exhibits and a zoo. Ark Encounter is built to the actual dimensions in the Bible, spanning 155 meters (510 feet) long, 25 meters (85 feet) wide, and 15.5 meters (51 feet) high, to give visitors an experience of what life could have been like on the ark. We could see it in the distance from the parking lot, but ended up skipping it as it was late in the day and it's not cheap to visit: $15 for parking in the lot, and $65 per person admission as well! It would probably be a great trip for families to spend all day here.
Instead, we continued on to the Elkhorn Creek RV Park, an RV park close to the state capital of Frankfort, where we'd be staying overnight. The RV Park is huge, and features a creek to go canoeing or fishing, a mini golf area, a playground, basketball & volleyball areas, and two large dog parks that even have obstacle courses for them to play around in (Lisette took Sheila to one, although she was not interested in these courses at all, preferring to sniff the grass and do her business).
Since it had been a hot day, we spent most of the time sitting on the picnic tables next to our RV park, having dinner (Michael made his signature dish, spaghetti bolognese), before swimming in the pool until it got dark. Martynas went to his hotel in nearby Frankfort, with plans to meet him the next morning to explore more of Kentucky!
Route Map
