Chocolates and Cacti

About 25 years ago, almost to the month, I attended a printer’s convention at the Las Vegas Convention Center with the company in whose building my office was situated.

One of the joy rides we took during the afternoons when we’d “display exhibited” ourselves out and needed a long break was a tour of the Ethel M Chocolate Factory in Green Valley.

It’s not real close to downtown Las Vegas, where our hotel was, and it took about a half-hour to get there by surface street – one rider plotting out directions on a large street map.

Yesterday I decided to check it out again and see if anything had changed in the two-and-a-half decades since. First of all, it didn’t take quite as long as the first time, thanks to Google and its maps.

The Factory Tour

You know what? The factory itself and the tour haven’t changed. You just enter the building, walk down a hallway with large glass windows on the left side, and watch the workers making the candy. The first time I was there, no work was being done. But yesterday, there they were, all dressed in white, making the sweet stuff.

At the end of the hallway, say 100 feet or so, was a nice lady who was handing out samples – little coin-sized pieces of chocolate candy (dark, white, and milk), and peanut brittle.

“If you want peanut brittle, you can choose one of the chocolates,” she said. “Otherwise, you can have all three chocolates.” Now what was THAT all about? Oh well, free is free.

Then you exit through the candy store where people were buying candy like it was going out of style. Here are a few pictures I took during the factory tour:

Packing peanut brittle for shipment

Cheerful free-sample lady

Sugar-Free means no calories?

The Botanical Cactus Garden

Twenty-five years ago, when I first saw the cactus garden, it was small, no bigger than master bedroom-sized. And all the cacti were small, like the ones you find at flower shows in little pots.

Yesterday, I was amazed at how large the cacti were, and how they’d been organized with paths between and identification signs for all of the varieties.

Here ya go … some cactus pictures. I know, I know, they’re all green with very little color, but after all, they ARE cacti and they DO live in the desert:

Saguaro Cactus

Lobivia Cactus

Red Barrel Cactus

Just goes to show you … Just because you’ve been somewhere before, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go back and see how much things have changed.

Besides, if you’re lucky, you might even get some free candy to satisfy your sweet tooth.