What I've done for FUN!!! Part III - March 2, 2009

So, after surviving my sketchy night at a rest-stop motel (see last blog…) I continued on my solo journey to Arcosanti, an urban experiment in environmentally friendly architecture.





Coolest basketball court ever!

The place is really interesting (read: nerdy) and I really enjoyed it! (Read: nerd). After touring the buildings, I continued up the road to my ultimate destination, Sedona.

Welcome to Sedona!

Selena in Sedona!

Bell Rock

A cathedral carved out of the rock!

Sedona is an absolutely GOREGOUS area between Phoenix and Flagstaff that has all the orange and red bands of sand and cliffs of the Grand Canyon without the giant whole in the ground. I only had the day to tour around, so I drove to every rock formation I could find on the map, had my nails done in red-rock colors to commemorate my trip, and watched the sunset from the top of a ‘vortex’ mountain, which is a mountain where certain energies are concentrated… or something. Whatever it was, it was beautiful!









I went back “home” to the Four Points Sheraton in Tempe and had another week of rehearsals (this was the second week of January) before I had another day off for fun! I had another two days off because of the Obama inaguration on the 20th, so for my fun that week I went to visit Biosphere 2 with Kendra and her parents. (Warning: If you didn’t know I was a nerd, this will forevermore solidify the fact for you. So if you would rather just think of me as normal little Selena, skip this next paragraph… hehe)

How I saw the Inauguration!

The Election-Day Specials at the hotel! haha!

A scary sign I saw on the drive to Biosphere! Don't worry- I didn't even slow down! haha!



I remember studying about Biosphere in school when it opened, and of course the Pauly Shore classic “Biodome” was a middle school must-see, so it was a no-brainer when my dad mentioned that it was only 2 hours from Phoenix. I barely made the tour at 3, and actually had to be personally chauffeured in a little golf cart out to meet the group in the Biosphere, which was funny!



Kendra, Kendra's parents, and me at Biosphere 2!

The tour was really fun though; they took us through all of the biomes, from the rainforest to the desert to the savannah. We even saw their ocean, which I was most interested in. Basically I just geeked out the whole time, not believing I was actually inside the legendary Biosphere 2. We ended the fun day with an amazing Mexican dinner at a very authentic-feeling resturant, since apparently we were very near the Mexican border! (Ok, so I’m NOT a geography nerd apparently…)

Mexican and Mariachi! Yum!

The next day, I went to Taliesen, Frank Lloyd Wright’s school and home in Scottsdale, which is basically a suburb of Phoenix. I had just read “Loving Frank,” a story of his affair with a married woman from Chicago that ended with a murder and a fire (quite dramatic, I won’t give it away, but you should go read it!) so I was interested in Frank Lloyd Wright not only for his architecture, but for his interesting life in general. The facility is absolutely amazing- he truly was a visionary, and I hope to someday hire one of the many students that study there to design my mansion! (Yes, still planning on Levi getting that elusive record deal and getting us that dream mansion!) I LOVE how he used natural light- super energy efficient, even before it was trendy… and it is so interesting how some doorways and entryways are designed to be VERY small, so that you want to travel further into the room, which is his intention in the first place! Genius!



Inside a room where FLW still orders you to sit!

At the desk in the gift shop was a nice guy who revealed, once we started talking about my camera, that he was a photographer who taught at the school! He also invited me behind the scenes to see a display of his work in another part of the school, which was really cool, and then invited me to join him and a friend that night at the Phoenix Art Museum, which of course I readily accepted. (I’ve always talked to strangers, much to my parents collective horror…)

Before the Art Museum, I had a few hours to kill, so I went to Cosanti, which was also designed by Paolo Solari, the architect of Arcosanti which I had visited last week. Once again I was fascinated with the strange, beautiful and different architecture. I even got to SEE Paolo himself, now in his 90’s, shuffling around the facility, as it functions not only as a visitors center and bell shop, but his own home! It was so awesome to see him, even in passing, in person!

More classic Paolo Solari architecture!

Awesome gift shop dinosaur architecture!

That night Quincy, my friend from Taliesen, took me and another one of his friends, Sarah, to the museum, and it was so much like a movie I couldn’t help but love it. Apparently, he goes to this museum so often that every docent and security guard knows him by name! So ever display we went to calls of “Hey Quincy!” rang out around us. He was like a VIP, and he was giving US a tour! Hilarious. We got to see some amazing pieces, and I especially liked the work of a sculptor and large-installation artist (whose name escapes me, of course) who had a few pieces in the museum. Currently, though, he is working on a HUGE project, and when I say HUGE, it doesn’t even begin to do this project justice. He bought one of the huge craters out in the Arizona desert and is building a MASSIVE installation that will use the light of the sun to create different effects within the crater and the art center that he is building within (and below!) the crater itself. The sunlight, during certain times of the year, will bounce around this art center in the crater in certain ways that will create light shapes and formations around the art center. Amazing, right? Quincy was a great guide, and the night was so interesting, informative, and (my favorite) artistic! It was great!

Sarah making some art of her own

Sarah, Quincy and me being artistic!