Arboretum August Days

With the city wanting to turn over the management of Fair Park to the parent of NBC television, I wonder what will really be in store for the public who live here. Tourist will come and go but it is the people in Dallas that may suffer the greatest down side of the overall planned up experience.

My thinking is that I have watched the Zoo and the Dallas Arboretum grow and draw in the people, but the cost of an average person going was never more obvious as to what really is happening this past Thursday. What I mean by that is the the membership has shot up into the $90 bracket, which is steep. August was always a fun time to go when the crowds were less and admission during August was $1. Well, scratch that, too, because the August admission is now $2.00 and that of course does not include parking. Parking in Dallas is almost as bad as New York, though not quite, yet, but it's coming. Keeping in mind that Ft. Worth's gardens are free. Albeit that even Cow town is talking about charging admissions as this is being written if they haven't done it already.

The Pavilion is behind what you see here from the lower level. It's air conditioned and a tasting demo was going on. The chilled frozen sorbet/sherbet from orange peppers was out of this world. The planted vegetable garden was ideal  (after all, it is at the Arboretum). Orange pepper arrangements were also displayed on the outdoor patio settings overlooking this new water Lilly pond

The new bridge is where the old privacy fence once stood as you walked up to the terrace where the restaurant order window remains and with an expanded terrace. 

The view of the dam is awesome from this viewpoint. I have watched this during the construction and wondered what the view would be like. It is yet another gem of White Rock Lake being on the eastern edge of the Arboretum.

I was talking to a gentlemen who lives in Allen, that said he had, 'stopped coming on the weekends',  during the spring and fall because of the crowds--which also includes my thinking, as well. Gardens such as the Arboretum throughout the country have always demanded respect at the ticket booth, but these are elective visits and people with some degree of caution, are beginning to see their electives going to different things more useful than just entertainment wise. My thoughts have echoed that more than once or twice of late. Never-the-less, I found myself wanting to see the finished product of the new Pavilion that sits down new steps from the old ones that went toward the Asian gardens, but that entire hillside that overlooks the lake is new and it adds great value to the Arboretum as a whole. For that alone, I'm glad I went.