Creationist and Christian fundamentalist Ken Ham believes that in ancient times humans and dinosaurs co-existed with a race of giants and they all did battle with each other in gladiator-style combat.

But the project’s single largest source of funding was actually $62 million in junk bonds floated by the town of Willamstown, population less than 4,000, home to the Ark Encounter and the county seat of Grant County, which faced bankruptcy this spring.

“In terms of revenue for the county, we don’t get too much from them,” says the county’s chief executive, Stephen Wood. The Ark Encounter negotiated a vastly discounted 30-year rate on property taxes in 2013 under a previous administration. “I hate it, but that’s the deal,” says Wood.

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Ham argues that his organization received a tourist tax break while creating jobs in a region battered by the economy.

Kentucky residents “should be thankful we’re here,” he says. “We’re creating all these extra jobs in the community, which wouldn’t be there if we weren’t here.”

Perhaps, but a year after the ark opened, downtown Williamstown, about two miles from the tourist attraction, still isn’t much more than a collection of resale and “antiques” shops and shuttered storefronts. At lunchtime on a spring weekday, Main Street was devoid of pedestrians, tour buses or open restaurants, except for a coffee shop with a tattoo parlor in the back.

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The ark is not completed. Still to open is an 800-seat restaurant on the top deck, where guests will be entertained by Noah-era reenactors, a Bible-inspired dinner theater.

The biblical theme park, ultimately featuring 80 structures, will be built gradually. The founders hope to open a new attraction every year. Next up is a 2,500-seat auditorium for events at the Ark Encounter, scheduled to open next spring. The Noah-era walled city comes after that. “Picture Disney Main Street with lots of shops, food and fun things to see,” says Zovath.

After visiting the Creation “Museum”, I thought it was a reasonable, responsible action for scientists to visit it to see what they’re up against. I can’t make the same recommendation for the Ark Park. There’s nothing of interest or value there, and it’s so poorly designed that no objective perspective could find it even entertaining.

Stay home. Put a wooden crate on a dirt pile. Have a friend grunt and make funny animal noises. Meditate upon it.

There. You have just replicated the Ark Encounter Experience, and you don’t have to spend $43.50 on it (that’s what it cost me. I shamelessly got the Senior Citizen’s discount, which is the first time I’ve done that.)

But mainly I listened because they spent about 5 minutes at the beginning talking about me. An atheist visited the Ark Park, shock horror, and he mocked everything. Ken has all my tweets printed out, and he was disgusted. How dare I say there wasn’t much information in the big wooden box? That seems to be what miffed them most. From the timing of my tweets, he calculated that I only spent an hour and 15 minutes in there, so I must have been racing through everything — why, when he personally takes groups through and explains everything, it takes about 2 hours to do the tour.

It sure felt like it was a lot longer than that — there was a lot of time spent slowly wending through ridiculously prolonged tours of empty boxes. But sure, I’ll believe it was objectively an hour and a quarter. I didn’t have to run to do that time though. It was more like a slow stroll, stopping at each room and display, and taking pictures. So once again, Ken Ham confirms my impression of the paucity of material in there.

He complains that I said the parking lot was ten times larger than it needed to be — it’s only twice as large, he said. No, that’s not true. I got there late in the morning, and got a parking spot right near the shuttle bus pick up, and sure drove a long way through empty spaces to get there.

About the weathered look of the outside of the ark — he says they intended it that way. OK. I guess grey is an attractive color.