Taliesin West

Our vacation had a distinct architectural bent, highlighted by our visit to Taliesin West and confirmed by our staying at the Hotel Lautner in Desert Palm Springs.  You're probably aware that Taliesin West was Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home, and you can read more about it here.  Touring it and learning about its construction and the school that still exists there were well worth it.  I still have fond memories of touring the Lloyd Wright house in St. Louis, so seeing one of his big'uns in person was pretty damn cool.

After, we drove directly to Desert Palms, googling Lloyd Wright scandals along the way.  They glossed over all of this/stuff on the tour, and even now a quick internet search shows that there are plenty of Lloyd Wright loyalists who refuse to admit that he was kind of a shithead.  Good architecture does not have to come from a good person, people.  Ain't no denying his architectural contributions.

Here's B hopping through the grounds.

This is what a shooting cactus looks like.  I know because some lady got shooed away from it.  And then later, we all wished she had taken a barb to the face as she let her toddler disrespect low-lying architectural gems.  I was so annoyed by the mini-distraction ("mini" references the size of the child, the distraction itself was HUGE) during the tour that I meant to drop a line to the folks at T-West to tell them that toddlers shouldn't be allowed.  Hmm.  Still gotta do that.  I ain't trying to be a baby-hater, all I'm saying is mind yo' baby.

I love this grumpy hippo.  The look on his face tells wayward toddlers to bug off!