We arrived at the visitors center at 10:30, just in time to buy tickets and catch up with the tour. The guided tour lasted and hour and a half and visited FLW's office, living room, bedroom, performance hall and theater as well as other locations around the grounds. Built as a winter version of his Wisconsin home/studio/school, the facility is still in operation, teaching his distinct brand of learning to live-in students. (His students did a lot more than study architecture. They had to learn to camp out, cook, socialize, perform on stage, and most importantly, observe their surroundings.) The tour was informative and interesting, the guide engaging and well spoken. Browsed the gift shop after the tour, but didn't buy anything. (Not even a puzzle.)

The visitor's center for Taliesin West is located at the top of the driveway, near the parking lot.

A view along the front of the house as it looks out over the valley. (This was the last shot left of my roll of 3-year-old film. The rest of the pictures taken this trip were with the digital camera.)

Another view of the house and surrounding structures.

This might seem an odd location for a pool, at the front of the house, but Frank Lloyd Wright designed it as a big evaporative cooler: the prevailing winds pick up moisture as they pass over the water on the way toward the house.

Looking across the lawn toward the living room.

Inside the living room. The room is air conditioned now, but the original house relied on roof panels of white canvas, to allow both air circulation and light, with the added bonus of diffusing the light to make it easy on the eyes of his architects working at their drawing boards. Our guide is the fellow with the beard in the background.

A fountain bubbles in a small pond in front of the Library (I think).

On the way over to Taliesin West, we'd spotted a Walgreens, so decided to stop there to pick up another tube of travel-sized toothpaste (we'd run out). While there, it dawned on me that I could get both rolls of 35mm film processed and pick them up later that afternoon. Didn't know how well the pictures would turn out, as that film had been in the camera (or in the camera bag) for over 3 years. Asked for a CD, too, to save me the step of having to scan the photographs into the computer in order to use them on the website.

With that it was time for swim. It was early afternoon, later than our other morning swims, but we were careful to use sunscreen where it was needed and not stay out in the sun too long. Got a little bit of pink in most places, but no real sunburn.

Decided that a trip in to downtown Phoenix to visit the Heard Museum would interfere with the afternoon's relaxation, so crossed that off the itinerary--maybe next time, eh?--and spent a leisurely afternoon at the pool and, afterwards, back at the condo. Lunch was the remains of Lauri's "stroganoff," just enough to split between the two of us to tide us over until dinner.

Had the concierge make reservations for dinner, then confirm our flight (I'd forgotten the departure time and hadn't printed an itinerary for the trip) and check us in through Continental's website. While Lauri showered, I picked up the photos. The film was still good, although a few of the pictures seemed a bit washed out or had more contrast than I remember. Of course, since I hadn't used the Olympus in so long, I may simply have forgotten what film from that camera looked like. Either way, I was just glad that they came out at all.

Since we'd pretty much accepted the fact we were returning to Cowboy Ciao for dinner--we figured it extremely unlikely we would find any place better--we decided to go early so as to browse the multitude of shops in the area. Even took a different route to avoid the snarl of construction traffic at Scottsdale Road and Camelback. It didn't take long to realize that was a bad idea. All the shops were boutiques--jewelry, handbags, Indian art, fashions--and if they didn't close at 5 p.m., then they certainly closed by 6. The area was peppered with a few sports bars and restaurants that were open, and we stumbled into one frock shop that was open only because the proprietor had recently lost his watch and didn't know what time it was. We did find a pizza place that carried bottled water--we were getting parched from all the fruitless walking around. Eventually we got tired of it and went back to the car, figuring we could cover more of the area, sit down, and be cool all at the same time. Didn't have to drive very far--less than half a mile--to find real shopping. Just north of the boutique area was Scottsdale Plaza, a mall with plenty of big stores that were open and had a/c. Live and learn.

It was time to cut our losses, go back to the parking garage, and walk to the restaurant, thinking that we could spend the 25 minutes or so before our reservation time sitting at the bar, if necessary.

It wasn't necessary; they were able to seat us right away. Our waiter, David, was happy to see us again (we'd requested his table). We hoped the frustration born of futilely wandering around would not put a damper on the dinner. As it turned out, we had an even better time Friday than we did Thursday. The only rule (self imposed) was that we couldn't order anything we'd had the previous night. Fortunately, they were still serving the marinated seafood salad, so we started with that. Lauri ordered the entrée special, a pork tenderloin served with a white-wine-lemon-pepper sauce and sauerkraut mashed potatoes. I had something called Puerco Lento--slow-cooked pork shank in a creamy cumin-paprika sauce with fingerling potatoes. Both were incredible. Our waiter asked the sommelier for a bottle that would compliment both meals, and we ended up with a very nice Barbera. He was disappointed that we didn't want a separate wine for the 1st course, so he brought us each a glass of a crisp white, on the house. (Like we were going to argue!)

We weren't hungry enough for each of us to have dessert, so we split a cheese and fruit tray. I had been intrigued by the late-harvest zinfandel on the wine list and asked to try that with dessert. It was amazing, a thick and intensely berry-flavored wine that you could almost pour over pancakes, but which wasn't excessively sweet. We each had two glasses of that.

Said goodbye to our favorite Scottsdale restaurant and waiter. We would have gotten a picture except the batteries in the digital camera chose that moment to run out of juice. Back to the condo, where we processed through early check-out, paid the tab, and took it easy until bedtime.