This October my wife and I will be spending 5 nights at the Westin Kierland Villas in Scottsdale. Primary intent of trip is to relax and decompress. That being said I can’t imagine sitting by pool all five days so am looking for suggestions on interesting day trips or things to do. We will have a car and have already been to Sedona and Grand Canyon.

Visit the Frank Lloyd Wright house- very interesting.

Also visit the Heard Museum- focused on Native American artifacts, history- I thought it was very interesting and beautifully done- they have a nice dining room with the best corn chowder I have ever eaten.

Take a day drip to Tortilla Flats- on the way you can do a boat trip on Canyon Lake.

If you continue on past Tortilla Flats on a very winding road, you come to a dam and just past the dam there are some interesting native american ruins- easy paved path up to the ruins.

Sorry for the semi-hijack, but just wanted to let sunbum1944 know I have a recipe for a fantastic corn chowder. Let me know if you want it.

We really liked:
Taliesen West
Heard Museum
Desert Botanical Garden

The Musical Instrument Museum in North Phoenix is just a few years old and has excellent reviews (have not been yet). If you want to decompress i would think twice about riding all day on the apache trail to Canyon Lake and beyond. The Desert Botanical Gardens are very nice especially when they have special exhibits.

We went to MIM(Musical Instruments Museum) when it first opened. We really like it; spent a few hours there and could have stayed longer!

Taliesen West was wonderful. Read "Loving Frank," by Nancy Moran before you go.

Heard and Desert Botanical are good as well, as is The Phoenix Art Museum.

Take a drive out to Roosevelt Dam.

Debit NM- agree "Loving Frank" was a very interesting book- what a strange and brilliant man he was.