Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum

HAMILTON, OHIO - Gov. Ted Strickland took in some art Thursday, April 1, when he made a stop in the city for a "mini-vacation."

His stop was a private one; not on his public schedule. He was on his way to a Cincinnati suburb to tout job creation there.

"This existed 1,000 years before Christ," Strickland marveled, inspecting a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy at the Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park.

With the governor pushing him in a wheelchair, Pyramid Hill owner Harry Wilks - who recently fell and broke his hip - proudly showed the museum's collection of ancient sculpture.

"One of the finest collections in the Midwest," said Wilks, a local attorney and philanthropist who has spent much of his life assembling it.

Strickland stooped by a Byzantine mosaic depicting a boar surrounded by predators. "Here I am," he said in jest, pointing at the pig. He then pointed at the others: "Here are my (critics)."

After touring the ancient sculpture museum, they lunched before motoring through the 250-acre park's scattered modern sculptures in a modified golf cart dubbed an "art cart."

They also planned on visiting Wilks' famed underground pyramid house, not open to the public.

"It far exceeds what I had expected. It's a major accomplishment," Strickland said of the park.

Strickland said he is a fan of art, but he's no art critic.

"I'm not a person who has a deep knowledge about the arts, but I know what I enjoy," he said, noting his main reason for visiting was "to spend a little time with my friend Harry."

Strickland was on his way to Woodlawn, north of Cincinnati, where he talked about a state investment to create 50 jobs at TSS Technologies with a 50 percent job creation tax credit.

The visit followed a Quinnipiac University study released Wednesday, which found that more than half of Ohioans disapprove of his job performance, but he holds a 5-point lead over Republican challenger John Kasich.