Thunder rumbled overhead, immediately drowned out by the growl of a four-wheeler crashing through the Alabama backwoods. Kent Hovind roared into view atop an ATV, taking the rutted dirt path down the hill and cruising to a stop in front of the welcome center.

He grinned and hopped off.

"We have constant chaos here," he announced. "I'll tell you the whole story."

His yellow safari shirt bore a Dinosaur Adventure Land patch (motto: "Where God gets glory for His creation") similar to the logo on the welcome center behind him. His life's work is to prove the Bible is true and scientifically accurate, and that evolution is "the dumbest religion in the history of the world."

The 65-year-old Baptist preacher and YouTube star is new to Alabama.

He'll tell you, more than once, that he spent 15 years teaching high school math and science. He doesn't mind admitting he spent nine years in federal prison, though he disputes the charges, which included structuring bank withdrawals and failing to file tax returns.

He opened Dinosaur Adventure Land a few months ago in Lenox, Ala., population 37. It's located on a red dirt road deep in Conecuh County, less than two hours from the Florida state line.

It's part science center, part campground, part four-wheeler park, part evangelical church. You enter at your own risk because there's no liability insurance. Everyone is welcome, and admission is free. They do Baptisms in the pond.

Yes, it's been called a cult. For Hovind and his supporters, it's a ministry. To his detractors, it's a dinosaur-themed tax shelter.

One thing is certain: It's a fresh start for a man with a colorful past who's building a new home in Alabama.

Dinosaur Adventure Land with Kent Hovind 35 Gallery: Dinosaur Adventure Land with Kent Hovind

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Hovind removed his mud-splattered sneakers before entering his little house, which sits a dozen yards or so from the welcome center. The house, he said, was donated by a Lennox resident who'd come to hear him preach at a conference in North Carolina. She said the house was half-finished and infested with raccoons, but it was free if he'd pay to move it from her property to Dinosaur Adventure Land, which he did.

"It's just been one miracle after another," he said. "God sends people to help us out."

Box fans in the windows cooled the kitchen as rain fell outside. His wife Cindi made coffee, sweetened with honey. Nick, the park's videographer, came in and started to set up a camera to record the interview, but Hovind told him it wasn't necessary.

Hovind has more than 100,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, where he posts his sermons, seminars and Bible studies. Many of his videos have tens of thousands of views; some top 200,000.

In his videos, Hovind takes facts and ideas commonly accepted by the scientific community and uses them to reconcile science with his literal interpretation of the Bible - namely, that God created the universe in six days and the earth is about 6,000 years old.

Take, for example, the dinosaurs, and the scientific fact that many reptiles don't stop growing during their lifespan.

"It's very simple," he said. "Before the flood came, in the days of Noah, the Bible says that people lived to be 900 years old. Genesis Chapter 5 tells us that. Well, I taught biology and reptiles never stop growing. What would happen to a reptile if he could live to be 900? That's the dinosaurs. No big mystery.

"So the devil, I think, is using the dinosaurs to teach boys and girls the earth is millions of years old, and it's propaganda. It's not true at all."

Hovind has traveled around the country, speaking at conferences, preaching, and publicly debating evolution with atheists.

He is the much-discussed subject of websites, YouTube videos, tax blogs, and at least one Facebook group dedicated to taking him down.

They're part of what his ex-wife called "an obsessed party of internet fanatics who invest an impractical amount of time and focus dedicated to revealing to the world their perception of Kent as a fraud and con-artist."

Hovind relishes it all. "Some atheists and scoffers online hate me. That's OK. I'd be embarrassed if they didn't. I think they hated Jesus, didn't they?"

Kent Hovind talks about how he believes man lived with dinosaurs while standing in the science center at Dinosaur Adventure Land in Lennox, Ala.

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The Dinosaur Adventure Land in Lenox is not the world's first Dinosaur Adventure Land.

Hovind opened the original in Pensacola, Fla., where he had occasional run-ins with Escambia County authorities for things like not getting building inspections. But the real trouble came in 2006, when he was convicted on more than 50 federal tax fraud charges relating to structuring financial transactions to avoid reporting laws, and for failing to collect employee taxes.

One of his chief defenses, according to media reports at the time, was that he didn't owe any taxes because everything he owned belonged to God.

He spent nine years in prison.

Shortly after he got out, he found his opportunity to start over, just 80 miles north in Alabama. In 2016, a supporter donated a 140-acre parcel of land in Conecuh County to Hovind's newly-created 501c3, Creation Science Evangelism Ministries Inc.

On a driving tour of the property, he explained that it used to be a gravel pit where sand, gravel and clay were mined. Because of that, huge sand dunes occupy much of the middle of the property. It's a popular place for four-wheeling.

As he drove through the rainy Conecuh County woods, Hovind kept up a steady stream of conversation, rattling off Bible-themed science lessons with a liberal scattering of dad jokes ("What's the last thing that goes through a bug's mind when it hits your windshield? Its butt.")

He says more than a thousand people have come to Dinosaur Adventure Land since it opened in April. Families, church youth groups and even four-wheeling clubs have not been deterred by the park's remote location or enter-at-your-own-risk policy.

Part of the property is wooded and crisscrossed with dirt trails. The main pond has a "redneck waterslide" made from corrugated plastic tubing, and a zipline from a sand dune on the shore to a light post stuck on a tiny island in the middle of the pond.

There's a field where he plans to plant a vegetable garden and orchard, and a playground area with swings and a climbing structure shaped like Noah's ark. At the top of it, dinosaurs share space on the ark with more traditional animals. The picnic area behind the Science Center has a fossil-themed sandbox.

The playground at Dinosaur Adventure Land includes a Noah's Ark climbing structure, with animals and dinosaurs on top.

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At any one time, Hovind says there are about 25 people living and working at Dinosaur Adventure Land.

"We've had probably 1,200 people volunteer to come help us build things" since they first started work on the park in 2016, he said. "People just call, they say they love us."

One of them is Mark Stoney, a combat veteran from the Birmingham area, who came to Dinosaur Adventure Land nearly three months ago and hasn't left.

Stoney found Hovind's Bible studies on YouTube. He decided to visit Dinosaur Adventure Land in April, and brought his 4-year-old daughter. They stayed for three days.

He came back home and told his parents, with whom they'd been living, that he felt called by God to go stay at Dinosaur Adventure Land for a month and volunteer there.

"When I was here, it felt like family. They completely accepted me from the minute I walked in and it was great," he said.

He wanted to bring his daughter with him. His mother wouldn't hear of it.

"My mom made it out to be like I was just moving in with strangers and joining a cult."

The cult accusation is one that doesn't seem to interest Hovind - he's dismissive whenever it's brought up - though it rankles his wife, Cindi. People come to Dinosaur Adventure Land, she said, because they're trying to find something they can't find other places.

"They're seeking how does the Bible reconcile with science," she said. "It's a big deal and he's trying to help. That's not a cult."

Stoney is still fighting for custody of his daughter, but he doesn't plan to leave Dinosaur Adventure Land.

"I want to stay now. I absolutely love this place, I love working here," he said. "We've got people coming from Russia, from Ireland, from Mexico and Canada, from all over the world. Getting to meet all these people who are also in love with Christ, it's a blessing."

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The front room of the Science Center is lined with shelves displaying Hovind's DVDs and books, all available for purchase. It's one stream of revenue for Hovind and the park, along with donations and advertisements from his YouTube channel.

The main part of the center is full of homemade versions of the kinds of science experiments and displays you might find at a standard children's science museum. There's a Van de Graaff generator - a metal ball that can make your hair stand on end - and a Tesla coil to demonstrate electricity. There's a drum that shoots smoke rings, and a Shop-Vac and beach ball configured to demonstrate principles of air pressure.

Science exhibits at Dinosaur Adventure Land include a Van de Graaf generator and a Tesla coil.

Model dinosaurs hang on the walls above, like deer heads. There are posters detailing how to be saved by Jesus, and placards next to science displays that explain why evolution is wrong.

In one room, near the fossil exhibit, sits a detailed wooden model of what Noah's ark might have looked like. Beside a tiny wooden elephant on the deck of the ark is an equally tiny brontosaurus.

"The whole purpose of our camp is to get people saved, to draw them to the Lord and give them the Gospel," Hovind explained, standing near a wall of pictures and newspaper clippings that show how dinosaurs lived with humans. "We use dinosaurs as a drawing tool (to explain) that God made the world. It's not millions of years old. The Bible plan is correct.

"God did it all in six days, just like he said."

Upstairs, he plans to have a section of the center dedicated to lies told in science text books, but it's still in development. Right now, some of the volunteers have bedded down up there because space is scarce in the bunkhouses.

The rain was starting to let up, so Hovind headed outside to the picnic area near the playground for a paper airplane demonstration.

He joked his way through the construction of the paper plane, which is made from a tract that lays out the Path to Salvation. He explained the laws of aerodynamics and called his materials by comically complicated names: a metallic propulsion device (a paperclip), turbulence minimizer (scissors) and a mono-directional adhesive polymer bonding strip (tape).

He has the practiced folksy charm of a Baptist preacher and the nerdy enthusiasm of your favorite high school science teacher. There were more dad jokes ("Did you know that 100 percent of mothers who drink coffee have babies who are born naked?") and life lessons. A demonstration of how to launch a rubber band to make it travel the furthest distance became a lesson on reducing turbulence in your life.

He tested his paper airplane on a homemade launcher out near the playground. It sailed nearly the length of a football field. He claims the park record is 150 yards.

The sun peeked around the clouds and he asked if anybody was interested in going on a four-wheeler tour.

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In recent YouTube videos Hovind has asked his supporters to petition the White House for a presidential pardon for his tax convictions. There's a whole website about it, KentHovindIsInnocent.com.

The state confiscated his property in Pensacola after his arrest and, according to news reports, he owes millions of dollars in taxes and fines. His first wife left him after spending a year in prison, too, for tax issues.

"I came home two and a half years ago to nothing," he said. "Everything gone, wife divorced me. What do you do? Keep on serving the Lord."

That's been his mission since accepting Jesus as his Savior when he was a teenager, growing up South Peoria, Ill. He later spent nearly 30 years in Pensacola.

These days, he and his supporters are building more housing for the volunteers who keep coming to Conecuh County.

And he's got jobs for them. At the moment he's looking for a farmer, a carpenter and a petting zoo director.

His wife, Cindi, said everyone is drawn to the park and the ministry because they're "seeking."

"People who have been brainwashed to believe that the Bible is a fairy tale, they get extremely excited and grateful" to find a place like Dinosaur Adventure Land, she said. "That's what happened to me. You find out that the Bible is trustworthy, that it's true and you don't have to be afraid to believe a 'stupid fairytale.' It's God's word and God is reliable."

Exhibits and posters at Dinosaur Adventure Land depict humans living with dinosaurs.

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Hovind's four-wheeler has a squeaky horn on the front shaped like a dinosaur head. He took off through the woods, his wife on a four-wheeler close behind, her long hair streaming out behind her. There were no helmets.

At one end of the property is a two-story wall of sandy red clay, complete with tiny waterfall, the result of sand and gravel mining. He paused there to explain how pioneer species of plants repair damaged ecosystems, which is a commonly-accepted scientific process, and also how the Grand Canyon was created in just a few weeks rather than millions of years.

The sun was out completely by the time the ATVs crested the tallest sand dune on the property. Hovind turned around, calling out over the roar of his four-wheeler to ask if everyone was OK with following him over the highest, steepest slope on the dunes. They were.

He revved his engine, thumbed the throttle and roared over the edge.