North Texas Nature Challenge #3 – Dallas Arboretum

Checked off another site for the  Texas Nature Challenge. This week: The Dallas Arboretum.

It was the most expensive Challenge so far, but it’s worth the admission fee if you do more than just what’s on the challenge sheet. You can read our full review here.

For adults, it’s $15.  For kids 3+, $9.  Kids under 3 are free.  Parking is $10.  You can save $5 on parking by buying it online before you go.

If you are the only adult, you can spend $4 riding the Dart system.  A couple of train stations still have free parking and there is a bus stop close to the entrance of the arboretum.  Check the Dart website to see which train stations are close to you.

That’s the only money-saving thing I found.

Make sure you dress your kids in something really cute because you will want to take some good pictures of them while you are here.  I wish I had thought of this.

We started to walk straight to the Pioneer Town like the challenge sheet suggests, but we got distracted.

These giant glass sculptures are everywhere!  There is an exhibit right now called Chihuly.  If you have a bunch of boys who like to throw rocks, I might suggest a different challenge, because these things are all over the gardens.  I was pretty nervous about the possibility of my son touching one of these, but we made it through okay.Then we found Texas Town and Pioneer Town.  These are lots of small-scale playhouses that look like cabins did back in the day.

It’s educational, like the Log Cabin Village we visited last week.  They have a couple of vegetable gardens that explain how pioneers used plants as medicine, etc.  But it’s not as authentic and the Fort Worth cabins.  Everything clearly states it was built by a company in Grand Prairie that makes playhouses whereas the Log Cabin Village in Fort Worth are real homes that people lived in.  But, the Arboretum is not known for its historical cabins.  That’s not why you go.

You go for the scenery.

After we completed our challenge worksheet, my son was begging to go back to the car.  He was hot and tired, and so were we.  But after a little water and a granola bar, he noticed gate we had not gone to yet and started off saying, “Hey, we didn’t see this part yet!”

After that, we pretty much saw everything else in the gardens.  We even saw a wedding.  It was so beautiful.

While you are there, make sure you see the splash park:

And the Artist Houses:

Happy Challenging!