Good Getaways
Life is Amazing – not to mention fun – with a visit to the Cook Museum of Natural Science
Story and photos by David Moore
“L
ife is Amazing.” “Discover Something Amazing.” These slogans show up everywhere at the Cook Museum of Natural Science in downtown Decatur. But you don’t spend long at all there before the kids around you demonstrate another important aspect of the museum – it’s fun! From live snakes, turtles, baby gators and bookoodles of bugs to creating lava-flowing volcanoes at a kinetic sand table and exploring inside a replica beaver lodge and a cave, exhibits galore await your kid – or grandkid – at every turn in this beautifully designed, 62,000-square foot state-of-the-art museum. The amazement factor derives from the Cook family’s intrigue with the marvels of nature. In 1928, John L. Cook of Decatur started what grew to become Cook’s Pest Control in six states. Secondgeneration John R. Cook Sr. in the 1960s had a large insect collection in a company warehouse.
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AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020
