Totally Texas -- Last minute treats, no tricks!

All dressed up for Halloween and nowhere to go? Try these last minute ideas for today or stretch the fun beyond All Hallow’s Eve for this weekend’s Day of the Dead.

October 31: Scare on the Square, at McKinney’s downtown square, West Virginia and North Kentucky streets. Hayrides, treats and of course, shopping around McKinney‘s historic courthouse square. From 4- 6 tonight, so there’s still time for neighborhood trick or treating. See www.downtownmckinney.com/.

October 31: Treat Street, Stockyards Station Mall, 140 East Exchange Avenue, Fort Worth. Costume contests, pumpkin decorating, hayrides and trick-or-treating, 6-8 p.m. Free. See www.fortworthstockyards.org/.

October 31-November 1: Ghost Tales at the Bath House on White Rock Lake, courtesy of Dallas Storytellers Guild. Evening performances for adults and teens, 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, $10. Spooky matinee tales for kids, 2-3 p.m. Saturday with free admission. The Bath House Cultural Arts Center is located at 521 East Lawther, on the shores of White Rock Lake in Dallas. (But access from Northcliff off Buckner Boulevard.) See http://dallasculture.org/bathHouseCultureCenter/visit.asp for directions.

November 1: Don’t toss the Halloween costumes yet! Kids age 12 and younger get free admission to Reunion Tower -- if they’re in costumes. More trick or treating all day, balloon art, and more from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. And enjoy the view from the enclosed deck or the inside interactive exhibits. Directions and ticket information for accompanying adults at www.reuniontower.com/.

Through November 15: Dia de los Muertos art exhibit at the Bath House. Take time during Ghost Tales intermission or later to the art exhibit. Free during Bath House hours, Tuesday through Saturday noon - 6 p.m., and until 10 p.m. on nights with theater performances. A work from earlier exhibits illustrates this post.

Through November 26: Autumn at the Arboretum, Dallas Arboretum, 8525 Garland Road, Dallas. The pumpkins don’t disappear just because Halloween comes and goes. The Pumpkin Village and Cinderella’s Coach don’t vanish until the day before Thanksgiving, still ready for photo opportunities. Open 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. daily. (Closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and New Year’s Day.) See
www.dallasarboretum.org/ for tickets, discounts, and parking information.

Totally Texas -- Adventure for the kid in you!

Children's Adventure Garden, Dallas Arboretum

8525 Garland Road, Dallas

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For the past year, every time my family visited the Dallas Arboretum we looked longingly at the fence separating us from the then under construction Children’s Adventure Garden. So I was thrilled to get an email last month asking me to take a sneak peek at the new garden. Inviting my daughter, two grandkids, a friend and her grandson, we hopped on the shuttle at the Arboretum’s overflow parking lot at Garland and Gaston Roads, bound for adventure.

It takes a lot of action and a lot of wow to please our group of three early elementary school aged boys, but the garden surpassed our expectations. And after it opens to the public tomorrow, September 21, I think it will surpass yours as well.

Even for kids like ours, a little young to appreciate the science involved. But they grasped the basic physics of squirting water guns to turn turbines in the T. Boone Pickens Pure Energy pavilion. As well as kid-powering a classic Archimedes Screw to pump water into a bucket for a big splash, manipulating the over-sized kaleidoscope, and discovering the delights of life at tree level on the Texas Skywalk (with bouncy rope “nests” at the top of its manmade tree). There’s enough other education-friendly fun to entice kids of all ages, and adults as well.

The First Adventure area is labeled toddler-friendly, but it has plenty for even older kids to run through, climb through, and splash through. Seldom mentioned in pre-opening publicity are all the water features, beginning with the entry court’s in-ground fountain. While the weather’s warm -- which in Texas can mean into November -- dress kids in clothes they can get wet in to take advantage of all the water.

You will have to enter the Children’s Garden through the Arboretum. Generally, this means paying the Arboretum’s $15 admission charge plus $3 per person for timed-entry tickets to the Children’s Garden, as well as parking.

Save by taking advantage of discounted general admissions on Wednesdays, senior Thursdays, and through area Tom Thumb stores, and on discounted parking (available online).

I got confused over how to get my member’s free tickets to the new Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden at the Dallas Arboretum, opening tomorrow, September 21. The Arboretum’s newsletter stated members could visit the garden its first year without the additional $3 fee. But after logging into my membership account, I got too excited by the mere sight of the words to scroll down a notch further, to the link “ Member Benefit Children’s Garden Timed Admission.”

A call to the Arboretum’s customer service line got me straightened out. Clicking on the member benefit link zeroes out the fee for up to 12 reservations (depending on your membership type). You’ll need to reserve a time, and when I checked forty-five minutes before publishing this post, tickets were still available for the afternoon of opening day.

If you want to ease into the Arboretum experience, try the main gardens.  They're in full autumn mode with a freshly-built pumpkin village, hay bale maze, petting zoos, face painting, and other kid-friendly stuff.  music and more. For more information, see www.dallasarboretum.org/.

(Next Friday -- it’s the State Fair of Texas, of course!)

Totally Texas -- Pumpkin time at the Arboretum

Autumn at the Arboretum

Dallas Arboretum, 8525 Garland Road

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October at the Dallas Arboretum means pumpkins. More than 50,000 weird and wonderful pumpkins, fall squash and gourds decorate the gardens. This year there are also gardens made of pumpkin mosaics (Southern Living magazine’s October issue featured them). But hold onto your trick or treat bag -- there are whole fairy tale houses built of pumpkins.

The Pecan Grove showcases all of these photo ops. And since the Arboretum asks people to come in costume for their pictures, the grove and walking trails recently have been crowded with children dressed as fairy tale characters.

Halloween on Monday this year also coincides with the Mommy & Me Mondays events of the autumn festival. For children under 5, that means a petting zoo, arts and crafts activities and face painting from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and more.

Need any more excuses to snap those pictures? Take a photo of your children, or your favorite fairy prince and princess, in a life-size replica of Cinderella’s coach “pulled” by topiary horses.

The Arboretum warns that, because of the activities, Monday is its busiest weekday. But most of the crowd leaves for naptime by 2 p.m., leaving the gardens to older visitors until its 5 p.m. closing.

In spite of the pumpkins, my vote for the star of this fall’s festival goes to the Nancy Rutchik Red Maple Rill, opened this month. More than 200 Japanese maples line the banks of the rill’s cascading creek and its walkways. As always, there’s plenty of room for children to move around.

Autumn at the Arboretum continues through November 23 but the gardens stay open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily except for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. See www.dallasarboretum.org/ for additional information, including tickets and parking.

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Also this week: Admission to the Dallas Museum of Art’s First Tuesday program is free November 1. Activities from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. are designed for children five and under, but all ages are welcome. See www.dallasmuseumofart.org for details.

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Can’t stand to wait another year for the next Halloween? Stretch the fun with the Dia de los Muertos art exhibit at the Bath House Cultural Center, 521 E. Lawther Dr. in Dallas. The free exhibit runs through November 12 during regular Bath House hours, Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. See www.bathhousecultural.com/ for information.

Totally Texas -- State forecast: Sunny and Fair

State Fair of Texas

Fair Park, 1121 First Avenue, Dallas

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It was the opening weekend of the 2011 State Fair of Texas, and the question at the forefront of all inquiring minds was: what, in the name of sanity, is fried bubblegum?

Okay, maybe it was the question at the forefront of my mind. And despite a momentary flinching, I persevered to find an answer. Of all the concession booths in all the fairs in Texas, I had to walk into the only one that offers it. Actually, I had to consult page 12 of the free guide book available at information booths in the fair to locate it. It was site number four on the Big Tex Choice Awards Finalists’ map, near Gateway Plaza. I was headed for Gateway Plaza anyway, to see Cirque Shanghai, whose Chinese acrobats, from the looks of them, seldom consume fried foods. Much less fried bubblegum.

It didn’t look the way I thought it would. Fair foods seldom do. Okay, they’re often encased in fried dough. But it seemed so innocent and cookie-like, I forgot all the advice I ever heard about not swallowing your gum. Beneath the sopapilla-like dough was a center of pink goo that smelled and tasted like the Double-Bubble of my childhood. And then, quicker than a pig race, it slid down my throat and was gone.

It might be fair to say it was more fun to eat than yummy. And at nine coupons ($4.50 in real money), a little pricey. But that buys you three gobs. Share with friends.

One other epiphany: it’s been a few years since I went to the Fair, before DART’s Greenline trains stopped at the front gate. For somebody brought up on a culture of parking in people’s front yards or walking what seemed like miles to get from public parking to the fair, this was a revelation. Despite previous problems with the relatively new Fair Park Station, this year’s transportation was a dream.

A few words of warning. If you buy the Fair entry/DART combo at Kroger’s, you may have to prompt the clerk to give you the $17 package (which would otherwise be $16 for a Fair ticket and $4 for a DART day pass). And if you change trains downtown, as I did, you need to look for those labeled “Greenline, Buckner Station” to get to the fair. Some trains are labelled “Fair”. Some aren’t. Ignore anything labelled “Special.” When you leave the fairgrounds, look for “N. Carrolton” trains to get back to downtown. And follow the advice of DART employees to move to the front of the stop. Front of the train cars were virtually empty, while those close to the gates were packed.

After several hours of pounding the fairgrounds, there was one other attraction I had to sample -- a foot massage chair. It was only a quarter (half a coupon in Fair money), but I’d give it a thumbs down. Maybe that should be a toes down. Save your money for the fried bubblegum.

The State Fair continues through October 23. Check http://www.bigtex.com/ for daily information.

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Other ongoing attractions in North Texas:

-- Autumn at the Arboretum, Dallas Arboretum, 8617 Garland Rd., Dallas. Through November 29. See www.dallasarboretum.org/

-- Animatronic dinosaurs at the Heard Natural Science Museum, 1 Nature Place, McKinney. Through January 29, 2012. See www.heardmuseum.org/