April 17-20, 1998: Tony Hirsch Visits Dallas
	February 18-24, 1998: Our Winter Trip to Florida
	Return to the Index for 1998

Today, Fred and I are taking my Mom over to the Dallas Arboretum. It is a nice day, and to make it easy on Mom we're going to borrow a wheelchair from the membership services office to wheel her around. We didn't take a great many pictures today, but there are some worth including here.

Getting to the Dallas Arboretum

The Dallas Arboretum is not too far from where I live over on Inwood- I'd guess about six or seven miles as the crow flies (see the map opposite)- but you can't get there as the crow flies because White Rock Lake is in the way. So you can either go through town and wind your way around the south end of the lake or you can take Mockingbird over around the north side of the lake. Today, we just took Mockingbird over to Buckner Boulevard to Garland Road and the Arboretum.

Of course today we stopped by my Mom's condo over on Meadow Road to pick her up, but then we came back down US 75 to Mockingbird and then followed our normal route to the gardens.

The bike path used to cross the top of the dam, but for one reason or another, the bike path was rerouted a year ago, and now it goes through some parkland and playing fields south of the dam, across the spillway, up Garland Road for a ways, and then back north along the lake shore.

You can also see a closer view of the Arboretum in this picture, and can begin to pick out some of the pathways through the gardens.

You can also see the maze of pathways that criss-cross the gardens.

We usually make a circular transit of the entire Arboretum each time we visit, but today, since some areas of the garden are a little tricky to get to with a wheelchair, we will stay around the Jonsson Color Garden and the main lawn, and also go up and down the Paseo (the main walkway through the garden).

On the garden map at left, I've marked our approximate route through the gardens today. I wanted to stay on main walkways that were wide enough and level enough so that Mom's wheelchair could navigate easily.

As it was, we covered quite a bit of ground.

The Jonsson Color Garden

The Jonsson Color Garden is a broad, lawn in three ovals, and each oval is surrounded by interlocking walkways. The are shaped flower beds at various locations along the outside of the ovals; these are always planted with colorful flowers of the season, and on the north side of the garden are a wide variety of azaleas.

At this time of year, of course, the azaleas are in full bloom; they line the north side of the Color Garden in huge hedges of different colors.

Mom and Azaleas

Mom can, of course, stand and walk quite well, but I just thought that so much walking at one time might be tiring, hence the wheelchar. But she got out of it frequently as she did here, and I was able to get a nice picture of my mom and the azaleas, and that's the picture you see at left. Fred also got a second picture of my mom, this time sitting down, with the azaleas in the background, and you can see that picture here.

As you can see from the map, we made almost a complete circuit of the color garden. It is a popular place for families to spread out a blanket and have a picnic or just enjoy the day, and it is usually the busiest place in the garden. On the inside of the walkway, particularly along the northern side of the Color Garden, there are large beds of seasonal flowers. These are changed out a number of times throughout the year. As you can see, the featured flower right now is the tulip.

As we came around the east end of the main lawn, we paused at the little circle that has a crepe myrtle in the middle (not blooming yet), and I was able to get a nice picture of Fred and my Mom with the Color Garden in the background.

The Paseo

The Paseo, or Paseo des Flores, is the main walkway through the garden. It goes all the way from the entry area (Ginsburg Plaza) through the middle of the garden to a building named the Camp House. (Although we didn't go that far, there is a nice fountain in front of the Camp House, and the Lay Ornamental Garden is just east of it. I might also mention that a huge new area of the garden opened the year before this writing- in 2013. It is an eight-acre addition called the Children's Garden. We have been there twice already, and if you'd like to see some of it, navigate to the 2014 page index and select the page for our visit to the Arboretum that summer.)

Mom Along the Paseo

We pushed Mom slowly down the Paseo until its midpoint, and then turned and came back towards the entrance. Along the way, Fred got the picture you see at left. He also found some poppies near the DeGolyer House; one of his pictures is below:

Although we didn't spend nearly as much time here in the Arboretum as we usually do, or cover nearly as much ground, the point of today was just to get my Mom out of the house on such a nice spring day, and I think she really enjoyed it. When we were done at the Arboretum, we headed off to get some lunch before getting my Mom back to her condo.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	April 17-20, 1998: Tony Hirsch Visits Dallas
	February 18-24, 1998: Our Winter Trip to Florida
	Return to the Index for 1998