Cook Museum of Natural Science
This summer we made a bucket list. I recently shared how much we accomplished on that bucket list. One of those things was visiting the Cook Museum in Decatur. So the week before school started, we made our way over there to see what it was about.
Parking
Parking is easy and free. We did go on a Friday afternoon, but even when we left and it was busier, parking was widely available. There is also an overflow lot across the street.
Entrance
The entrance is really beautiful. There is a nice fountain and some pretty places to take pictures.
Tickets
We bought our tickets online. There is no fee to do this, and it allows you to guarantee a time slot. They only allow so many people in during each time. But you can also buy tickets at the museum.
Restrooms
So there are two restrooms that we noticed. One is at the entrance, and one is at the exit. You cannot get to the one at the exit without a ticket (seems obvious, but when looking at a map it may not be quite so). The restrooms were really large and had plenty of stalls. They also have step stools for the kids at the sink which is really nice for the little ones.
The Museum
So the museum has so many different areas for the children to explore. Here is a map.
The museum is bigger than I expected given its location, but it is also not overly huge. We finished it in about an hour and a half. After lunch, we did go back and do a few things that Melody found to be her favorites, but we might have stayed an additional 15 minutes. It was not too crowded as I mentioned above, but there were some congested areas near the interactive things. I won’t go into each individual section of the museum. Instead I will do a photo dump below and speak on a few of our favorite things.
I think I found the space section the neatest myself (“Looking Up”). Melody would have likely really enjoyed it if she could ready and had a greater attention span. The “Foundations” room had a neat interactive section, but I didn’t feel we had a enough time to really understand what we were doing when it came to showing it all to Melody. The lines got really long here, so be advised on that. There was a built in cave section Melody found neat, but it was very short lived. The “Oceans” section was nice with the aquarium. It was a small aquarium but still nice to have live creatures to see. Melody loved the turtle. Melody’s most favorite area was “Forests”. She loved the tree house the most, obviously. But there was also a platform to walk out and see some of the other rooms from atop. There was also a small bridge to view some of the forests. This was the area we returned to after lunch.
At the very end was an area for really little ones to play. Melody was bummed she couldn’t play here. I was kind of bummed there was more for her age. I think having the small area was great for really little ones, but if you can’t read and have a smaller attention span, you won’t find most of the exhibits that fun. But it is still nice to have this area for the babies.
As with most things, we ended at the gift shop. I didn’t grab a picture, but they did have some really neat things. So beyond the typical gift shop merchandise, they sold brands like Swig and Melissa and Doug.
Nature’s Table
So after our exploring, we debated lunch. It was 11. We didn’t really want to venture too deep into Decatur just because we didn’t want to make it a really long day. There are some places to eat around downtown, but not much Melody would eat. So we took a look at the menu for the in-house restaurant, and we decided to just eat there. Nature’s Table is a chain, so it is not overpriced theme park style food. Their variety was nice, and we all found something to eat.
I didn’t get a picture of the dining location itself, but it is small. They do offer plenty of outdoor seating though. We easily found a table, but as we left tables were hard to come by.
Brad got the Baja Turkey Jack Combo. The sandwich was interesting with the avocado jalapeño mayonnaise. Neither of us particularly cared for it, but Brad said it was edible. It wasn’t bad, but the mayo was just a little different for our taste. I got the mix it up combo. It came with a 1/2 sandwich or wrap, the featured soup or salad, açaí scoop or cookie, and fountain drink. I opted for the tuna salad sandwich, the featured salad (which was some sort of orzo thing), and an açaí scoop with granola. All of my food was really good. The salad was interesting, but I really liked the vegetables in it. The sandwich was really good and not crazy tasting with the tuna. If you eat tuna, you know it can be either good or bad depending on the mayo and add ins places incorporate. And I was surprised by the açaí scoop. I had never had it before, and I really enjoyed it. Melody got the kid’s chicken tenders with chips and a cookie. The chicken was actually decent. I believe it was baked or air fried as I didn’t see any actual friers there.
Overall it was a really fun day, and I am glad Brad got to go. The museum was really nice, and we will likely go back again next summer. I had considered an annual pass, but Melody is still too young to fully enjoy it right now. And with school, we will rarely take the time to go over there I am sure. Oh, and we realized after getting in the car, we forgot to get a picture just the 3 of us!
