Taking the Kids: No Guilt Allowed on Moms' Getaway to Scottsdale

By Eileen Ogintz, Tribune Media Services on Oct 11, 2012

Learn more about Native-American culture and arts at The Heard Museum (www.heard.org). (Kids will especially like the hundreds of Kachina dolls that represent spirits imbuing positive energy and the hands-on galleries where they can sit in a canoe, peer into a traditional house, make a craft or listen to a story.

Go for a bike ride in the desert at night, as we did at the Boulders Resort (www.theboulders.com) or hike at the vast Scottsdale McDowell Sonoran Preserve (www.mcdowellsonoran.org).

Celebrate the 75th Anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West (www.franklloydwright.org), the famous desert camp that is a National Historic Landmark, where you can take courses in design or ceramics.

Indulge in a desert spa experience. (How about the adobe clay purification treatment at the Spa at Camelback Inn or the Turquoise Wrap at the Boulders Resort?) I'm really not a wrap kind of girl but there I was slathered in clay and wrapped like a mummy. The treatment, in case you are wondering, is based on the Native-American belief that turquoise is a color of protection, self-confidence and positive energy.

Take your favorite foodies out to dinner. Downtown Scottsdale's (www.scottsdaledowntown.com) ancient Indian canal system is now an area that boasts more than 100 restaurants, including those in SouthBridge, a development of local stores and independent restaurants.

Got any budding astronomers in the gang? The night sky here is amazing! You can even take a tour into the desert to a remote area where an astronomer will point out constellations (www.stellaradventures.com). I love that the Four Seasons (www.fourseasons.com/scottsdale) offers constellation charts as a turndown amenity. People here take their star-gazing seriously. Seven Scottsdale spas have on-site astrologers ready to consult with you.

Truthfully, we could have happily spent the entire weekend lounging and eating, but guilt kept us from doing that -- for more than a few hours anyway. It turned out there was far too much to see and do in Scottsdale, a lot more than we expected, in fact.

By the time we headed to the airport early Sunday morning, we weren't feeling guilty about anything, even our aborted hike. Certainly not the margaritas!

Don't you love mom's getaways?

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