06-26-2017, 12:04 AM
(06-19-2017, 10:53 AM)Benton Wrote: I live about an hour or so from a place called Discovery Park. It's the half baked idea from a guy who lived in the middle of nowhere and went on to build the chain store Kirklands. He wanted to bring a bit of the world (and some much needed tourism after their largest employer moved to Mexico), so he donated several million out of his own pocket and built a pretty kickass museum/children's learning center. I've been a half dozen times since it opened 4-5 years ago, and it stays full.Don't know, man. He certainly picked a good state for it. I honestly thought it was doing pretty okay for awhile.
Half baked idea, but it turned out to be something great and draws in people from a couple hours away.
People will go to the middle of nowhere if you've got a good product. I think Ham overestimated the number of people who think man tamed dinosaurs and literally fit two of everything that's alive today (or recently extinct) into an over-sized house boat.
I took my wife and 4-year-old son to La Rosa's in Dry Ridge late one evening last September. We were on the way back to Lexington from Kings Island after my company's annual picnic. It was about 8pm and they were swamped. I asked if it was all people from my employer, and the waitress told me it was largely traffic from the Ark Park. It was much newer then so maybe that had people going to check it out.
I've been to just about every zoo, museum and aquarium worth going to in this country. Some of them multiple times. I've been to a lot of the major amusement parks, too. I've been to some out-of-the-way shithole zoos and tourist traps, too. All of them had something that I was willing to pay or drive a long distance to see or do. If the Ark Park had something like this, I'd go regardless of the message. They don't. It's as basic as it gets in terms of collection. I guess if a giant boat that doesn't do boat things was interesting to me, then I would.
