Viva Last Vegas – A Prickles And Chocolate Experience.

Yesterday we once more decided to leave the pleasures of “The Strip” for a while to partake in the diverse pleasures of prickles and chocolate ….

We have seen a few cactus’s on our trips into the desert …. but we what we really wanted to see were some of the more mahoooosive and particular prickly ones ….. like the ones you see in cowboy films ….

….. so we jumped on a bus and paid a visit to Ethel M®’s Botanical Cactus Garden which, would you Adam and Eve it,  also has a chocolate factory on site ….. just how fortuitous and spooky is that especially knowing our keen confectionary interests?

We “did” the cactus’s first …… OMG it was H.O.T …… well past our Richter Scale of looking and feeling fresh and fragrant …. I hate to be so descriptive …. but,  I was soooooo H.O.T. I could feel the sweat trickle down the crevice of my bum ……something I have never experienced before!

Nigel also confessed to having the same problem, coupled with a raging and potentially fatal thirst and so pondered aloud as to whether it would be frowned upon to perhaps hack into one of the aforementioned cactus’s with his penknife and drink of its juice ….. in a lifesaving, rufty tufty cowboy type fashion ……. 

Fearful that Nigel’s good intentions might be misconstrued and have us ejected from the gardens I suggested that it might be best that if we had seen all the cactus’s we wanted, it might be best to visit the cafe instead to quench our thirsts, and then venture to the Chocolate Factory …..

Now, although America likes to think it does everything bigger and better than us …. we have to be honest, and without being rude, say that interesting as Ethel M’s is …. it isn’t a patch on our Cadbury World and we should know, as we have been there, and sampled of its wares quite a few times……The Melting Tanks …….

…… and the Caramel Apple Station were a source of robust temptation for Nigel, so I made sure I kept a tight grip on him for fear of a Willy Wonka type scenario unfolding …… although he settled after being proffered some free samples.

Naturally,  we made several very small considered purchases ….. but decided it might be best to eat them there and then because, with the heat outside, we could all see them melting beyond recognition before we could get them back to our hotel ….

And our considered opinion? ….. Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom ….. however,  as we were not in our kitchen at Castle Greysquirrel,  where we observe very stringent nomming conditions when reviewing, we decided that it was perhaps not the most appropriate time or place to award any of our Richter Scale of Noms …. but if we were,  Ethel M’s chocolates would have been in the between 6 and 9 bracket!