Chicago History & Peggy Norbert Museums

Today, the weather had seemingly planned a day of rain specifically for us! Thankfully though, we had a few places lined up that were all indoors. So, after grabbing a quick bite to eat at Dunkies and, crucially, a coffee to get my motor properly started, we hopped on the number 22 bus for just a quick three-stop ride up to the Chicago History Museum.

Museum Day

Looking Down on History Museum Lobby

This feels like one of those slightly overlooked museums that loads of people know exists but never actually get around to visiting. At $12 each to get in, it's certainly not overpriced, though. Inside, the museum covers the history of Chicago right from when the very first settlers arrived from places like Denmark, Norway, and Britain. It goes into how they initially tried to live alongside the Native Americans, but, well, it seems like for the most part, they just ended up killing each other. Chicago definitely had a pretty violent beginning right from the off.

The Train Gallery

There were some really fascinating displays in there that covered all sorts of different aspects of Chicago's past. They showed you how the railways grew up, which were absolutely massive for connecting the country and making Chicago the huge manufacturing and distribution hub it became. There was even a great short film on how important that age of trains was from the 1930s to the 1960s, linking it to the war effort and the building of modern cities. They also had sections on big social changes, like how women got the vote, and the civil rights movement – the really important fight for equal rights for groups like Black people and gay people. The part on civil rights had a particularly fascinating photography display in one of the galleries.

Detailed Dioramas

Among the other amazing displays they had were these incredibly detailed dioramas showing various important events throughout the city's history. The amount of detail that had gone into them was just amazing! After soaking all that up, it was time for a bite to eat in the museum cafe. They were doing bacon sandwiches, but I have to say, they were nowhere near as good as the ones you get back home. There are just some things we British truly excel at – bacon butties and a proper cup of tea. And honestly, don't even get me started on the tea they serve over there!

After that, we made our way into the museum gift shop. Jane spotted a pocket watch there by the exact same company that had made the one I'd picked up in San Francisco. Well, that instantly became a must-buy item, even at $25! It's definitely not the sort of thing you'll find just anywhere, especially with "Chicago" right there on the front. Apparently, they make them for most US cities and states, which sparked an idea – this is now something I want to start collecting on our future trips over to America.

Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

From the History Museum, it was back onto the number 22 bus, and we carried on heading further north, away from the very centre of the city. We passed the zoo again on our way to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. This place is a bit of a mix, sort of like a nature reserve with a conservation area out the back, combined with natural history exhibits chucked in for good measure inside. For less than $10 each to get in, it felt well worth it, especially considering it had been raining for most of the morning and only really stopped just as we got off the bus for the fifteen-minute walk over to it.

Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

The building itself is spread over three floors, with a big central open space where you'll find the ticket office and cafe area. And although the museum building is actually fully accessible inside and compliant with the ADA (the American Disabilities Act), the path from the pavement right up to the entrance doors is most definitely not. It's honestly hard to understand why, after spending so much money, time, and effort building the place, they didn't manage to include a flat, smooth surface at the entrance. Instead, it was this really uneven 'crazy paving' that made it completely impossible for us to use the wheelchair on. I'm genuinely amazed nobody has tripped over and broken their neck on it, but thankfully, the rest of the place has nice smooth floors throughout, with lift access to all levels. 

Hopefully Not Actual Size

There is a fair amount to see inside, including the giant replica bugs and a breeding programme for endangered amphibious animals. It's funny to see a load of baby turtles walking round with numbers painted on their backs, but it's the only way to tell them apart, I suppose.

By far the best part of this place is the butterfly house on the second floor. It's absolutely brilliant, with hundreds of butterflies flying all around you. And, as always, they seem to be particularly attracted to Jane! They started landing on her and her bag almost as soon as she got in there. This isn't the first time she's been mobbed by them; honestly, maybe she's some kind of Queen Moth Woman!

Imperial Moth

It was really nice just sitting in there, watching them flutter about, with a massive glass wall giving you a great view overlooking the wildfowl gardens and lake outside. On the way out of the butterfly house, you have to stand in front of a mirror while a member of staff checks you over to make sure you haven't got any little hitchhikers hiding on your back, on bags, under the wheelchair, or anywhere else they might be trying to stash away for an escape bid. You obviously don't want your star display items flapping off out of the door!

Possibly A Lime Swallowtail

I think we spent about three hours wandering around the museum in total. Just as we were about to leave, the heavens suddenly opened, and down came the most torrential rain. If we'd left just a few minutes earlier, we would have got absolutely soaked! So, we decided it was a much better idea to grab a drink from the cafe inside and just watch the rain lashing down through the big windows until it stopped.

These heavy showers tended not to last for long, but you really wouldn't want to get caught out in one without shelter. Even though I'd sensibly brought a coat with me today because of the earlier rain, it was still far too hot and humid to even think about putting it on, even when it was pouring down. Not that it would have done much good in that sort of heavy rain anyway! Luckily, it didn't last too long, so after about a thirty-minute sit-down watching the downpour, we were able to make our way out.

The Conservatory

Lincoln Park Conseratory

A short walk from here is a place called Alfred Caldwell Lilly Pond, which is supposed to be a nice walk of about a quarter of a mile past various types of ponds, but it seemed to be closed, and the pathways that I could see through the fence didn’t look that flat, so we ended up heading round the edge of it to the next place on the list, which was Lincoln Park Conservatory. 

It's free to go in here, and it wasn't too busy, which is unusual for something that is free. But with the humidity inside, this made all the floors wet and a bit slippery, so Jane had to stay in the wheelchair to get round – better to be safe than sorry. There are some amazing plants in here, but some parts did seem to be so densely planted, so it can be hard to tell what you are looking at, but if you’re not paying, you can't complain, as they say. 

Plan B

By now, it was getting on for about 4:30, and we started thinking about heading back. As luck would have it (or maybe not luck!), just after leaving the conservatory, it started absolutely lashing down with rain again. Jane had a brolly with her, but trying to push a wheelchair and also watch where you're going to avoid potholes, especially when she's holding the umbrella out in front, is just not easy. Time for Plan B!

These Cats Like Rain

We were conveniently just passing the entrance to the zoo again, the one we'd been to the other day, and since they didn't close until 6 pm, we decided the easiest thing was to nip back inside, specifically just to sit in the cafe and get out of the rain until it passed. It actually turned out to be a pretty good idea, as the lions were out now, so we managed to get some decent pictures of them, which we hadn't been able to do last time. Who says cats don't like water, eh? Another bonus of popping back in was that they have free Wi-Fi, so I could have a proper look online. I needed to see if it was worth waiting for the number 151 bus, which I'd heard was a bit unreliable, or if it was better to walk a bit further for the number 22 bus, although they all seem to turning up at the same time anyway.

Downtown Between Showers

It turned out the number 151 was the best option for getting us closer to the hotel. The app I was using was brilliant; it had an animated map showing the vehicle location in real-time, so you could see it wasn't going to arrive in the five minutes the timetable might suggest – it was clearly going to be more like fifteen minutes! We hadn't used this route before, and it takes you right down the motorway into the city, which is always interesting to see different parts of a place. This meant that instead of potentially a thirty-five-minute ride or longer crawling through traffic, it was only going to take about twenty minutes.

We knew we'd have a little bit further to walk to the hotel once we got off this bus compared to the usual one, but thankfully, by the time we arrived, the rain had finally given up for the day. The area where we got off at seemed to be a busier part of the Gold Coast neighbourhood as well, and we spotted a few more shops that looked like they might come in handy for us later in the holiday.

Subs And Beer

It was just a short walk to the shops to get some drinks from the other CVS that we had found, and then it was time to drop into Jimmy John's again to try a different sort of sub tonight. I can't actually remember what we had on it, it could have been the ham and cheese one, which was so yummy, and we washed it down with a beer. By now we were halfway through the holiday, and the time seemed to have flown by. So far we had done most things that we had planned on the days we had planned to do them, and apart from today, the weather had been brilliant for us. 

Tonight there was a baseball game on PBS, so we settled in for that for the rest of the evening. Normally, on previous trips, I would go out in the evening and have a couple of drinks in one of the local Irish bars, and although I had picked out a few that were close by, most days I was either far too tired because of the heat or just couldn't be bothered and would rather sit in the hotel room with a beer. Plus, we did have cable TV as well, so there were about 200 channels to choose from, but like in the UK, there is sod all worth watching on most of them.

Today started off a bit gloomy, but we'd only planned to take a walk and enjoy the warm weather.

Reflections On The Day: Butterflies & Wheelchair Gymnastics

Saturday was one of those days where Chicago’s weather seemed determined to keep us on our toes. With rain on and off from the moment we woke up, it could easily have turned into a washout, but instead it became one of the most unexpectedly charming days of the trip. The Chicago History Museum was a brilliant start — full of stories, dioramas, and reminders that this city has always had a flair for drama, chaos, and reinvention. Even the bacon sandwiches in the café managed to spark a patriotic moment about the superiority of British butties.

The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum turned out to be the perfect rainy‑day refuge, even if the entrance path looked like it had been designed by someone who’d never seen a wheelchair before. Inside, though, it was a delight — giant bugs, baby turtles with numbers painted on their backs, and the butterfly house, which once again confirmed that Jane is some sort of insect royalty. Watching butterflies land on her the moment she walked in felt like déjà vu from previous trips.

The torrential downpour that hit just as we were leaving could have been a disaster, but instead it became a cosy half‑hour of sitting by the café windows, watching sheets of rain hammer down. There’s something oddly soothing about being warm and dry while the world outside looks like it’s being pressure‑washed.

The afternoon wander to the conservatory was a mixed bag — beautiful plants, slippery floors, and humidity that made the place feel like a tropical greenhouse inside a tropical greenhouse. But it was free, and it kept us entertained until the next inevitable downpour. When the heavens opened again, Plan B kicked in: retreat to the zoo café. It turned out to be a stroke of luck, because the lions were out posing like they’d been waiting for us.

The bus‑route juggling that followed was classic Chicago — timetables that lie, apps that tell the truth, and buses that all arrive at once. But the motorway ride back gave us a new view of the city, and by the time we reached the Gold Coast, the rain had finally surrendered.

The evening was simple and perfect: subs from Jimmy John’s, a cold beer, and a baseball game on TV. No Irish bars, no late‑night wandering — just the comfort of air‑conditioning, good food, and the feeling of being exactly where we wanted to be.

Saturday wasn’t flashy or fast‑paced, but it was full of small joys: butterflies, unexpected lion sightings, cosy rain breaks, and the satisfaction of navigating a city that never quite behaves. A gentle, slightly soggy, thoroughly enjoyable day.