September 18, 2009: At Balloon Fest in Plano
August 25, 2009: A Trip to Texas A&M and San Antonio
Return to Index for 2009
September 8, 2009
A Visit to the Dallas Arboretum
with Guy Blair
 

Today, the day after Prudence's Mother's birthday party (see 2009 Miscellaneous) we are taking Guy to the Arboretum for the afternoon. Both Guy and Fred love the Arboretum; I am more blase about the experience.


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.


In this closer view, you can see the south end of White Rock Lake and you can pick out the bike trail that hugs the lake shore almost all the way around. At the south end is White Rock Lake Dam and spillway, which takes the overflow water and sends it under Garland Road to continue on down to the Trinity River.

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.


Finally, in this close-up of the Arboretum itself, you can see most of the major features- including the parking area just off Garland Road, the new administrative buildings, the restaurant and gift shop (all right near the parking lot) and, off in the middle of the gardens, the DeGolyer house (the former residence of the family that donated the land for the Arboretum to the Arboretum Society.

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

 

Our Route Today

I've used an Arboretum schematic from their web site to illustrate our route today:

Our trip through the gardens today followed a route that, with minor deviations, we follow frequently. It gets us to all the major areas of the gardens in one continuous walk. We began at the entry and cafe (where we had a drink and a sandwich), went down the walk through the Fern Grotto and across the bridge, and then around the main lawn. Below are thumbnails for the first set of pictures that cover this part of the route; click on them to view the full-size images:

From the Main Lawn, we continued eastward through the Womens Garden with its beautiful tiered watercourse. Then we jogged east and traversed the McCaskin Sunken Garden. Below are thumbnails for the set of pictures that cover this part of the route; click on them to view the full-size images:

From the sunken garden, we walked a bit north to the new water features and fountains and the lily ponds that they have created. Then we walked up the hill back to the main Arboretum walkway and turned east to walk by the Camp House and into the entry to the back garden. Below are thumbnails for the set of pictures that cover this part of the route; click on them to view the full-size images:

To complete our walk, we went through the back garden and then out past the Camp House again and over through the Test Gardens. This brought us to the Frog Fountains, always a nice place to relax. Then we walked through the arched crepe myrtles back to the main walkway and from there back to the entry. Below are thumbnails for the set of pictures that cover this part of the route; click on them to view the full-size images:

That completed our walk through the Arboretum this afternoon.

The next morning we took Guy to the airport and he was back to Green Bay.

You can use the links below to go to another album page.

September 18, 2009: At Balloon Fest in Plano
August 25, 2009: A Trip to Texas A&M and San Antonio
Return to Index for 2009