Murray Park Arboretum

We used to live in Murray so I have been to Murray City Park dozens of times in my life. I never knew about the arboretum on the north side of the park. When our kids were young we came to play on the playground equipment or to swim. By the way, the playground has changed completely since I last took children there decades ago. These two girls were playing on outdoor musical instruments.

This is not my picture but you can see it's the same set of drums.

We were more interested in visiting the arboretum this time. It's on the north side of the park and was established on Arbor Day 1961. It's named after the woman who first suggested it, Joan M. Hardle.

This sign is located directly west of the public swimming pool. Once you walk past it, the arboretum section of the park is directly ahead. The word arboretum means trees but there are also other woody shrubs in the collection. There is an online guide to the plants which mentions the following:

Unique and interesting spring, summer, autumn and winter displays are always observable within the Arboretum. These include a cacti garden, hybrid iris bed, water ponds, shrubbery beds, seasonal flower plantings and many varieties of trees with unusual foliage and flowers.

The online site has an index to the plants and a map to guide you. 

As usual, my husband took my picture and I took a few of him. 

I accidentally took this picture of him along with showing my own hand on my power chair controls. I liked it so much that I kept it. I could not do this on purpose if I tried. 

The park was beautiful as usual. Since it was a Sunday morning, there were only a few people around. Two men were filling sand bags in preparation for the flooding that is expected in the next few weeks. The creek is already running full. There are signs highlighting the danger of the fast water.

There is a lake near the south parking area that was new to us. It's probably meant to help with flooding but it provides a home for ducks, also. 

The original arboretum was planted on property previously owned by an immigrant family from Italy.

Unfortunately, the initial design incorporated some small concrete bridges over the rivulets. It's unfortunate because the bridges come to a point at the top. We couldn't cross over them safely. What constitutes only a few steps for an able bodied person can form a barrier to us. 

If the above picture were a video, you could see that the drive wheels on my husband's chair were spinning. That's because the bridge lifted the drive wheels away from the sidewalk.

I considered getting a run on the little bridge in my chair but I was afraid it would pitch me forward sharply on the down side. I can walk a short distance so I got out of my chair and took a few pictures. 

They take Arbor Day seriously here. There is a list of children who won contests in the past.

As we were leaving the area, I noticed one of those miniature neighborhood libraries. This one faces the park so I'm not sure who is supposed to be trading books there. 

It's always fun to discover a new place that we can explore on our chairs. My only wish is that we could look around inside the restricted area. 

Jordan River Parkway Heading North from 7000 South to Murray City Limits

The Jordan River Parkway is an accessible 40 mile long trail in Utah. Until recently, I didn't consider it to be completely safe. Cell phones work there but it wasn't possible to pinpoint your location. Now markers are being installed so that you can call for help and report your exact position on the trail. 

The first of 164 new markers was installed by SLC to make the trail safer. The markers each have a number and letter. They will be placed every 250 feet and will span nine miles of the river. The exact location of each marker is entered into the 911 system. The hope is that all the cities along the trail will install their own markers. 

I asked Google Maps for directions to the trail at 4700 South and got an odd map. When I showed it to Bill he said, "What are those little dots? Do we have to fly over that area?" This map was obviously wrong.

We followed the directions and ended up in a subdivision with a paved trail that was nowhere near 4700 South. It was just south of 7000 South. There was no place to park except on the residential street. The trail looked intriguing so we decided to try it anyway.  

There was a sign warning of sharp curves ahead. We decided to check it out since we were adventuring. Almost immediately, a local resident saw us and tried to say it would be dangerous for us. He didn't speak English but he warned us of a "cliff" ahead. That seemed unlikely but we wanted to take a look. It was indeed a steep descent to the river. 

After taking a good look, we decided we could easily get down the trail but we weren't so sure we could get back up. Going uphill uses a lot of battery power. We have good batteries but we didn't want to get stranded. The resident also told us there was a parking lot nearby and pointed to the east. We went out onto 7000 South and headed east. Shortly after crossing 1500 West, there was a large parking lot to the right. 

There were only a few people out as it was Sunday morning and most people were at church. This trail head also has a big rest area right across from the parking lot. 

This turned out to be a nice little section of the Jordan River Parkway. It started with a bridge over a small stream.  

The trail is close to the river on the east side. There are houses on the west side. 

We saw some tree stumps that were obviously the result of beaver activity. There are no beavers there now. There is no way anyone is going to let beavers build a dam on this river-- which would probably be called a creek in most areas of the country. A beaver dam would cause flooding and major damage. 

We really enjoyed the sights along the river. A couple was walking their baby in a stroller. Several people passed us on bikes. We saw birds but none of them were especially rare or interesting. The trail was blessedly free of dog poop but there was a little goose poop that Bill had to clean off his tires. This is a typical view of the river and the mountains. 

When we reached the underpass into the Murray area, we turned around and headed back. 

Here's a view of the trail on the way back. It's a nice outing and definitely beats sitting in a recliner. We plan to visit and write reviews of other sections of the trail.

Cheese and Chocolate Festival

This is an annual event held at the Museum of Natural History in Salt Lake City. It costs $25 for each person for the class and $11 each for the museum admission. The museum is well worth the admission fee and many people spend all day searching through the five floors. 

We can't spend all day since the power chairs get uncomfortable after awhile and we need to get out of them. We limit ourselves to two hours in the chairs. 

Someone offered to take a photo of us together. You can see the woman behind us was dressed in a skirt with a petticoat. That style went out in the 50's. I remember wearing petticoats. I had one like this. My waist was exactly like that, too.

There were three women dressed this way. I asked them if they belonged to a group. They said no, they just liked to wear skirts with petticoats. 

We got there when the doors opened which was a good thing because it got pretty crowded. I sampled some of the bread, cheese, chocolate, cupcakes, sauerkraut and other offerings. 

I stopped at the Beehive Cheese booth. They had cheeses flavored with whisky and jalapeno, among other things. I have the palette of a two year old so I only sampled the milder flavors.  

I sampled some chocolates here. 

I wanted to be sure that we saw the Mayan exhibit. It was phenomenal. But, again, we had to rush through it. 

We had only a short time left before the class started so we went to visit the dinosaur section. 

The class was held in a room off the side on the second floor. The presenter was a woman from Caputo's Market and Deli. 

First, she passed around a small cup with cacao juice in it. It didn't taste like chocolate. It tasted like a fruit juice. She took apart a cacao pod. Some pods are brown but others come in various colors like these. 

Inside the pod, there are seeds and cacao butter. Some craft chocolate makers use the cacao butter and others don't. 

Next she gave us a piece of Dove's dark chocolate. That's one of my favorites. We talked about the waxiness and sweetness of the Dove chocolate. 

She sent around a piece of Amano Dos Rios 70% chocolate. It's made in Orem, Utah, and has won international awards. Utah is hot bed of craft chocolate makers. The ad for this bar says, "This single note dark chocolate made with cacao beans from the Dominican Republic is known for its floral and citrus notes." This bar costs $7.99 at Caputo's Market and Deli. 

The next bar was Solstice Madagascar. It's made from cacao beans from the Sambarino valley which is sometimes called the "green gold" of Madagascar. It costs $8.99.

Moving right along, we tried a bar from Papua New Guinea. It's described as having an earthy aroma along with the scent of the allspice that grows near it. The price is $9.99.

We had another piece of Dove chocolate for contrast. There were small cups of water on the table and saltine crackers to clear our palettes but I never cleared mine.

The next bar was the most expensive at $17.99. It's grown in Venezuela in the Chuao valley. It costs so much because the only way to get to these beans is to haul them out of the secluded valley where they grow. A group of women control access to the beans in this area. I wonder if the collapse of the economy of Venezuela is a factor in the price. 

Our last chocolate bar was made from beans grown in Ecuador. It won four awards in 2018. It is priced at $9.99.

I like chocolate and I thought it all tasted great. I still like Dove chocolate the best.