The post where Rich goes somewhere and does something again….. finally

Richard Charpentier Notes from Rich Leave a Comment

Ah yes.  Been living the non-travel life for too long lately.  How do you deal with not traveling when you own a cool Airstream?

Take a road trip!

Recently one of my new lighting assistants (Elliot) discovered that being a VAL wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.  Upon realizing that fame and fortune weren’t going to jump right up he made the decision to run away to points unknown along Route 66.  So, the road trip was taken to find Elliot……

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  Clearly, Elliot was keeping his new KOA camp all to himself.  A little foreboding maybe?  A little gangsta?  Uh, yeah, Elliot’s gonna need to work on the gansta name I’d say……

Elliot was having none of it.  Heck, I even brought a jar of lightly salted dry roasted peanuts to entice him back to the glamorous world of lighting assistant.  So I popped a very bright flash in his face with a softbox in order to disorient him long enough for Kassi and I to stuff him into the Nissan Titan.

After finally convincing Elliot to come back to civilization we decided to go shooting for a while.  Unfortunately our next stop, Twin Arrow, frustrated and confused Elliot.  All these windows, but no glass……The VAL was in jeopardy of going rogue once more…….

Witnessing all of Elliot’s angst, Kassi came around to his way of thinking.  Windows with no glass?  Photographers who pay in peanuts?  Not enough Life Cereal to go around?  Kassi quickly realized Elliot was right and packed up her things in a Pelican case with an Overland Journal sticker on it.  Interestingly enough, I have such a case for lighting gear…….returning to the truck I found said gear all over the floor boards……hmmmmmmm

While waiting through the winds at Twin Arrow, losing both my lighting assistants to the call of the open road, I too gave up and decided to just take some photos.  Kassi was extremely confident that at any moment a Greyhound bus would stop in and whisk her away to glamorous locations like Kansas City, or Toledo.

Elliot took a different approach.  While Kassi waited for the inevitable bus to anywhere away from peanuts for pay, Elliot declared the Twin Arrow cafe as his new domain, citing that there was still more roof there than the burned out KOA Kampground.  He did have a point.

Telling me to hit the road, and Kassi that she couldn’t stay at his new cafe without at least purchasing a soda, Elliot was ready to settle into his new life………  You know, crazed hermit in a burned out building.  Man, the guy was pretty stable until I had him start helping me with gear.  Yet I don’t feel responsible in the least.  😉

After some coaxing and convincing I managed to wrangle both back to the Nissan.  It was a cold and windy day.  The Titan was warm and full of Gatorade, dry roasted peanuts, and rice cakes.  I think it was the rice cakes that sold them.

As an added incentive I promised to stop by the Lomaki ruins on the way home.  Elliot insisted on posing with his mad scientist hair do, and I obliged.  Kassi insisted on an unlimited supply of rice cakes for future photo shoots, and since I’ve got an in with a rice cake manufacturer it was an easy negotiation.

So you know, no VALs were harmed during today’s excursion.  Frozen?  Yes.  Defrosted?  Of course.  Deranged more than when we started this thing?  Uh, they spent the day with me……

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