3427. Visit the Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Cactus Garden in Henderson

 We got to Vegas earlier than expected and needed something to kill time before we met up with the hubby's bubby. I had Ethel M's in the back of my head in case we had time to kill and since it was not on the strip, the hubby agreed we could go check it out.

Ethel M Chocolate Factory is located in Henderson, a suburb of Las Vegas. It was founded by Forrest Mars Sr. and was named after his mother. It is the luxury brand of Mars candy. It has a factory, store, and a cactus garden. 

When you walk in, you are greeted with a sample of their candy -- milk or dark. Then you can watch the factory at work. They were making Snickers when we were there. 

Then it was off to the store. You can buy truffles or candy bars. You can pick out your truffles or get pre-packaged ones. It is a bit pricy at 3 candy bars for $10 or 12 truffles for $36. Then again any good truffle will set you back $2-$3 so not horribly outrageous considering we are in Vegas.

After a little convincing, the hubby agreed to get 12 truffles -- 6 for each of us. 12 was the smallest box that we could do of pick your own.  There were normal flavors like caramel and chocolate cream. Some had alcohol such as rum, agave tequila, Irish Cream, and bourbon. And then you had some untraditional flavors such as prickly pear and honey.

They had a mix of dark and milk chocolate truffles along with some white chocolate to choose from. I went with 6 dark and the hubby mainly went with light but did do one white. We saved them until we got home and they are very good.

With our chocolate in hand, we went to check out the cactus garden outside. It was a small garden but had several paths. There were a variety of plants and cacti. The hubby said it was better than the botanical gardens and I almost have to agree.

It is also a nice place to watch planes come into the airport if the wind is right as the flight path is right over the gardens. The hubby was thrilled so we watched planes for a bit as well.

Overall it was a great choice of a quick adventure. It was far enough off the strip that the hubby was good visiting. They do have a location on the strip in case you need your chocolate fix and are downtown. We are already planning on going back next trip.

1182. Go to the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix

 When Spring Training is delayed, you start looking at what are hubby approved places on the bucket list. Museums are okay depending on the cost and the kind of museum. He is frugal.. okay so am I. Zoos and nature are really not his thing. I mentioned the botanical garden and he did say he would like to see them especially since we got a sneak peak the other year when we tried to go to the restaurant there for lunch and realized it was foo-foo, expensive, and totally not our kind of place. 

Luckily for us the second Tuesday of the month is community day at the Desert Botanical Gardens and admission is free. Currently the price is $40/adult because it's peak season and there's an Chihuly exhibit going on. As much as I would loved to have seen the Chihuly exhibit, there is no way I would pay $80 to see blown glass and cacti. Just saying. 

Due to COVID, you had to get tickets ahead of time for a certain. I think this is a great idea especially on a free day when it could get really crowded really quick. Hopefully they keep this going after the pandemic. I was initially worried because we have a Wisconsin address but that didn't matter. I got us two tickets for entry between 9 and 10 am. Even if baseball wasn't delayed, we would been able to do this. 

The botanical gardens were a lot of different cacti. Even though we got there right at nine, it was open for an hour already and there were still a lot of people.

We saw Pipe Organ Cacti

Joshua Trees

Barrel Cacti

A really cool green tree.. I'm sure it has a scientific name but green tree works for me

Pretty flowers

And more Saguaro Cacti

The best part of the Desert Botanical Gardens and the real reason I wanted to go was the Chihuly in the Desert Exhibit. Dale Chihuly is a world renown glass artist that creates impressive sculptures out of blown glass. These pieces are scattered throughout the botanical gardens adding a splash of color to the normally drab desert look.

There was also an inside exhibit which featured some of his artwork and more blown glass pieces.

We kind of just wandered aimlessly down whatever path we felt like. We did not have a map. Others did but we were not given one nor did we ask for one. It was really well signed though. We avoided the butterfly garden and other places I knew the hubby wasn't going to be overly interested in. He might have liked the butterfly garden but I saw enough butterfly gardens in Costa Rica. We probably spent about an hour there which is way less than most people but we saw what we wanted to see. 

The Desert Botanical Gardens are worth seeing at least once and if can go there on a free day it is even better. There is not a lot of parking and it is close to the Zoo, ASU Campus, and Tempe Diablo Stadium so you can plan your day accordingly. 

Just being able to see the Chihuly exhibit was worth the trip to the Botanical Gardens. Other than the it is a bunch of cacti and lots of people. It is one of those things that if we have nothing better to do and it's a free day, we might check out again but really have no desire to go back. Maybe I'd go back a bit later in spring when things are in bloom but again not much changes. 

1207. Go to Saguaro National Park in Tucson

 When I started planning our Arizona trip without baseball, my cousin told me about the Pima Air Museum in Tucson. I decided we should check it out along with Saguaro National Park since we were going to be in Tucson and I wasn't sure when we would be there again. Plans changed and I found college baseball but still kept Saguaro National Park on the agenda.

Part of my wanting to go to Saguaro was that we are planning on going to South Dakota in September and would need a National Park pass to help with park fees. Since I would need one in September, might as well get one now and get our money out of it. The Annual America the Beautiful National Park Pass is $80 and covers most entrance fees into the National Park System and is good for one year. Picking up one this year made sense. We had one a few years ago when we went to the Grand Canyon and really didn't get our money's worth out of it, this year we would definitely get our money out of it. 

Saguaro National Park is split into the East and West sections with the city of Tucson in the middle. My original plan was to visit the east side because it was near the museum but with going to the baseball game, the west side made sense. 

To get to the Visitor Center to buy our park pass and get my stamp, is about 20 miles into the park. We drove up a winding, hilly road through the National Park, then back to public land, and back on National Park land before reaching the visitor center. You can actually view this part of the park without paying but once you get to the visitor center and anything beyond you need to pay. 

We bought our park pass, which I immediately misplaced (and found in the same spot I left it), and got my stamp. Then we explored a few short trails around the visitor center. The hubby was grumpy by the gravel trail. 

My original plan was to drive the scenic route through the park which was a dirt road but do to bad planning and not realizing the visitor center was so far into the park, we really didn't have time before the game. So we took a different road out of the park and still saw plenty of cacti.

I would love to go back and explore more of the park but then again it's just a bunch of big cacti. You see one cacti, you've seen them all. They all look the same. It would be nice to see them when they are flowering though. Maybe one day when we have more than 2 or 3 days in Arizona.