Ouch, Mr. Wright

Most of you are very aware of how much I admire Frank Lloyd Wright and his work.  I've planned part of my earlier trips around tours and stays at his work.  When I realized that the Christmas house was a short drive from Falling Waters, I put my bid in right away for a family trip there.  My own enchantment with Wright goest back to the original Mike Wallace interview in 1957.  I watched it then and wanted nothing more than to have this man design a home for me someday.  He wasn't able to do that so I continue to move about the country visiting as many of the homes he did have time enough to design as possible.

Falling Waters is special to my family not only because it is amazing and beautiful, but because we visited it together many years ago when we were all together driving back home from Interlochen Arts Camp.  It makes the kind of impression that none of us have forgotten, so pretty much everyone was there on our first full day after our arrival.  Falling Waters did not disappoint and we were happy to be able to share it with two of the grandkids (Fiona was taking a nap at the house).  Luke liked the explanation that Wright wanted to focus on the sound of the waterfall but kept a special enjoyment for the places where you could see the river or the falls.  Annie, too, liked the idea of having a house with the outside so very much inside.

What I had forgotten was that there are a lot of stone steps throughout Falling Waters and somewhere in there I must have taken a wrong step.  When I got back to our house, I realized that my left foot was not exactly comfortable.  I expected improvement by next morning but it kept getting more painful and I was unable to keep from remembering when I broke a bone in that foot and how similar it felt.  After a firm talking to from the rest of the family,  I agreed to a drive to a nearby town for an x-ray.  The good news is that nothing was broken.  The bad news was that it was days after Christmas before I could finally get a shoe on and go for a walk along the river that ran right in front of the house.  At least it means that there will be a lot left for me to explore if we do this again next Christmas.