November 23, 2002: My 56th Birthday Party
October 26 - November 3, 2002: A Trip to Arizona
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November 16, 2002
A Visit to the Dallas Arboretum
 

Today we are going to go with a friend of ours, Jeff Coffee, to the Dallas Arboretum. Fred met Jeff through his Networking class that he is taking at Collin County Community College. Jeff lives east of here so we met at my house.

 

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.


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.

Today wasn't an extensive visit; there was no particular festival or event going on at the Arboretum; Fred just wanted Jeff to see it. So I haven't bothered to mark our path through the gardens or anything like that; we'll just take a look at some of the pictures we took.

After having some lunch, we got to the Arboretum a little after noon. Fred and I have memberships, so we can take guests in for free.


In the Demonstration Gardens

We basically followed our same circular route through gardens, trying to see as much as possible. But with no special event going on, and this being mid-November, there wasn't a great deal in bloom. Click on the thumbnails below to see some of the pictures we took as we walked through the Arboretum:

I only took a couple of other pictures. I got one of Fred and Jeff clowning around and another taken near the main entrance of Fred and Jeff.

It was a pleasant outing, and I enjoyed meeting Jeff.

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

November 23, 2002: My 56th Birthday Party
October 26 - November 3, 2002: A Trip to Arizona
Return to the Index for 2002