What) Be sure to keep your eyes on the road as you pass this amazing sight! Actually pull into the mall area, park and walk up and around it to really get the full feel of this awesome work of art. The Spire was designed in 1957 and built in 2004. The spire or tower was originally designed for the Arizona State Capitol, and weighs more than 75,000 pounds. It's assembled with approximately 1,700 individual pieces of steel. The Spire is lit at night and turns a cool blue. The internal illumination system includes 142 eight-foot lamps that range in size from 30 to 96 inches. (1)

    Where) 12621 North Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard at The Promenade Mall

    Why) You may recall that on a previous trip we did a Frank Lloyd Wright architectural tour. Pam was pleased that this was not on the agenda for this trip but putting one stop on the list for nostalgia purposes did not seem out of line. Additionally, Pam's friend had requested that we get him some kind of Wright related item as a gift so this seemed like a good place to stop and do that.

Well, we were unable to use our advanced GPS unit or our brains to find the alien looking structure that is the Spire. (2)

In a way, we really missed out as it is a Wright work that may have raised Pam's opinion of him up from the negative. (3) (4)

Of course I admired the unusual detailing but none of this is getting us a gift for Pam's friend. (3) For that we decided to ...

... visit the nearby Taliesin West gift shop.  Thanks to this brochure that we happened to find in our hotel lobby ... 

... we had no problem locating it. (I am only showing you this image again because I seem to like portraits of Wright himself).

Once inside the gift shop, Pam had trouble picking something out so I made a couple of suggestions and ...

... I was pleased when she decided to purchase both of them. Hopefully they suited her friend's tastes as well.