August 13, 2019

Ethel M

By roads-rus

Ethel M is a company that makes gourmet chocolates in an unusual place, Las Vegas, Nevada.  Actually it’s in Henderson.   Ethel M Chocolates have been around for almost 40 years.  Good son Forrest Mars created the company in his mother’s honor and chose Nevada because liqueur-filled cordials were legal there.  This is a branch of the company that makes 3 Musketeer and Snickers bars. Their gourmet chocolates are made in small batches with no preservatives, and they are delicious.  Also on this chocolate factory’s  premises is the largest cactus garden in Nevada, the other reason for traveling to Ethel M.   Ruth and I saw it for a 2nd time earlier this year.  We were on a tour with about 20 women, mostly Air Force wives, and 2 men.

The Ethel M Cactus Garden attracts about 65 varieties of hummingbirds, but we saw none that day.  It strives to focus on plants native to Nevada and the Mojave Desert.  Near the middle of the Mojave, this cactus garden specializes in unusual cacti and reportedly cultivates more than 300 species of it and other desert plants.   One of my favorites was called the Shin Dagger.  Actually an agave, Shin Dagger is only found in the Chihuahuan Desert that does not stretch to Nevada.  This agave’s long, rigid, and sharp shoots can penetrate clothing, even leather.  Cowboys named them Shin Daggers for this characteristic.  We also saw Cow’s Tongue, Paper Spine, and Purple Pancake cacti.  Paper Spines look like long fingernails and Purple Pancakes look like Mickey Mouse.

Two common desert plants are featured in the Ethel M Cactus Garden, the Joshua Tree and the Saguaro.  Our host told us that Mormons named the Joshua tree, which I should have known.  I read recently that Joshua Trees may disappear in a global warming era.  He also told us that Saguaros can live for 200 years and don’t sprout arms until they’re about 75, which I did know.  Our host showed us a Saguaro planted in this garden in 1985 that is just beginning to grow arms.  I hadn’t seen the internal structure of a Saguaro until I visited the Ethel M Cactus Garden.

This is a tour worth taking.  After it Ruth & I sampled and bought some of Ethel M’s chocolates as a gift for our Las Vegas host.  Keny was thrilled with them.

Hank

ps  Both Cow’s Tongue and Purple Pancake are in the prickly pear family, and the 2nd photo above is 3 Shin Daggers.

About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 13th, 2019 at 8:41 pm and posted in Nevada. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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