Ready for Day 1 ...

Well, today was ... long. And tiring.

Dad and I spent the better part of three hours unloading the truck and then Jason arrived from Sacramento and we spent the next seven hours getting the booth setup.

It was a really long day, but a good one. I'm happy with the way the booth looks. We're in a great location and interest is strong - and that's important when you've come all this way!

I'll see if I can get some pictures of the booth tomorrow morning so that we can post some. I was kicking myself today - I didn't bring my camera when we were setting up. I would have liked some before, during and after shots of the booth going up.

Right now, it's about 11:30, we're back at the hotel, I've just finished building our photography schedule for the first part of the morning and I'm going to try and get some sleep before the sun comes up!

We made it to Denver!

Well, we made it in last night. Once we make it to Rawlins in Wyoming, if the weather if good, the rest of the drive is easy.

The morning was gorgeous in Rawlins. As I mentioned, we're creatures of habit, and we filled up at our normal gas station and ate at Cappys restaurant. Unfortunately, we did get one unpleasant surprise when we ordered at Cappys: they no longer serve breakfast! So I had a bacon cheeseburger and salad for breakfast, instead of the Denver omelette I had been hoping for. Tragic isn't it?

It was beautiful coming through the pass in the Rockies (though I completely fell asleep for the best 45 miles of it!) The clouds were the best part of what I did see. They put on a GREAT show for us.

As we approached Denver, we stopped off about 20 miles out to pick up supplies at a local Costco. That pushed our arrival back to about 7pm. We had a bit of an adventure getting into our hotel. We weren't booked at the hotel we thought we were.

My goal was for our staff to simply have to cross the street in the morning to head into the convention center, so I wanted to book us at the Hyatt. Unfortunately, I booked us at the Grand Hyatt instead - four blocks down the road. The walk back to the hotel each night isn't all that bad, but it's not the convenience I had hoped for.

I'm just glad they figured out why the Hyatt didn't have our reservation. :)

We checked out our booth space in the Convention Center. They didn't give us the space we usually have, so it's going to be a bit cramped. The organizers lopped off 1/3 of our booth! But we're in a highly visible spot - just inside the main doors to the play area, so anyone looking for us should be able to find us easily.

We're just about to head over to the Convention Center to start unloading the gear. Jason is on a plane on his way out and the rest of the staff will be joining us tonight.

I probably won't be updating this section until after the tournament, so - if you're one of the very few reading this - keep an eye out for us next week!

Day 1 Done - we're in Rawlings, WY.

We made it to Rawlings, Wyoming - another traditional way station of ours on this yearly pilgrimage to Denver. We pulled in at about 11:30pm, after about 13 1/2 hours of total travel time.

Breakfast this morning was McDonalds and dinner was Taco Bell. Yes, we dine like royalty while on the road. :)

We're creatures of habit, and we're booked into the Travelodge in Rawlings and will eat breakfast at Cappy's restaurant just down the street. (for those of you who have not experienced the trip, these are familiar stops for us).

Dad (John to most of you reading this) drove all day today, as usual. But the good news for me is that the weather was great and Nevada and Utah really showed us their pretty sides.

The drive was actually ... pleasant. After the marathon of work the last week, sitting in a car UNABLE to work and being forced to relax was a rare treat.

I'm going to make this entry short.

Not only do I not have anything interesting to say, it's 1:30am Wyoming time and I'd like to get some sleep tonight so we can get back on the road "early-ish" tomorrow.

But, I will share a few pictures. These are unedited, but are likely to be included in my "America from the Side of the Road" series that I have been building for years.

On the road again ...

Hi there! Well here we are ... on the road. Again.

As I write this, it's currently 4:14pm, we're crossing mile marker 73 in Utah on our way to Denver, Colorado for the first weekend of the 2008 Crossroads Junior National Qualifier tournament. My 17" "laptop" is crammed on my lap in the truck and I'm doing my best typing. I have a feeling this will be my only "live" entry. :)

We left Sacramento last night at about 8:30pm heading east on Interstate 80. After a quick bite to eat at In N' Out burger in Roseville, we got back on the road and drove through to Lovelock, Nevada.

This is a small town about an hour's drive into the state and it's become something of a yearly tradition for us to arrive at the Lovelock Inn at about 1:00am, wake the elderly woman that runs the hotel and drag her out of bed so that she can get us checked into a room. We're pretty consistent - we've done this to her five times now! Always the same lady, always about one in the morning. She's good natured about it though. :)

It doesn't look like much (and, in all honesty, it's not the Ritz) but it's a comfortable motel in a small town. If you ever find yourself in Lovelock looking for accomodations, stop in!

Getting Ready to Go.

Well, the time to begin our really busy season of club volleyball photography is again upon us.

Every year, we travel around the country to photograph tournaments in various States. Because of the fact that we setup a booth at each tournament and the booth cannot be flown or commercially shipped from location to location we have to drive the gear ourself.

Many families and other photographers have expressed some interest in what we do and the fact that we get to travel all over the country as photographers. I guess that sounds a bit "glamorous" and perhaps on the surface a bit more exciting than your average job. And, to be honest, it is. :) However, it's also full of the mundane and an unusually large amount of work. So it's got its pluses and minuses.

I thought it was time to pull back the curtain a bit and give a peek to anyone interested in how things work when we're between tournaments.

Because we are almost completely self-sufficient and we have all of the gear we need for a full tournament booth (other than the electricity), when we have tournaments in Colorado, Atlanta and then LA on back to back to back weekends (as we do this year), we have to get the gear from location to location ourselves. This year's major travel loop is:

• Sacramento to Denver for two weekends of the Colorado Crossroads tournament.
• Denver to Atlanta for the Big South tournament.
• Atlanta to LA for the 1st weekend of the SCVA Qualifier, but then "off" for 10 days at home in Sacramento (during which time we will be processing orders from the Denver, Atlanta and LA tournaments).
• Then back to LA for the 2nd weekend of the SCVA tournament.
• Then to Reno for two weekends in a row of Far Westerns.
• Then the Power League Championships tournament in Sacramento.
• Then the Willamette Classic tournament in Corvalis, Oregon.
• Then a weekend off, but during which time we'll be processing orders and I'm scheduled to photograph a high school graduation and an engagement portrait for a wedding.
• Then the Emerald City Classic tournament in Seattle, Washington.
• Then the California Finals tournament in Sacramento (the first day of which I will also be photographing the afore mentioned wedding!).
• Then back to Reno a week for our final tournament of the season, the Volleyball Festival.
• And, finally, the very day after Festival ends, back to Sacramento to photograph a wedding.

I try not to mix volleyball and weddings, but these managed to sneak in - one is the sister of a volleyball player we photographed for years and whose family we really enjoy working with and the other is the daughter of a volleyball coach we photograph for regularly and also enjoy photographing for. How could we turn them down? :)

That list covers from the 2nd week of March through the 1st week of July, so if we're a bit slow to respond to emails or phone calls, please bear with us. (Just looking at that list makes me tired ...)

Naturally, because we'll be gone for such a stretch, before I can comfortably leave the office, I have to get as much done as possible so it doesn't turn around and bite me later. So "today" (the day we departed on our trip) was actually a 38 hour marathon day making sure that all orders placed to date this year were completed and ready for the lab, bills and taxes paid, CD orders burned and shipped, flights booked for the staff that gets to fly, hotels booked, the truck loaded with our gear, etc., etc. That was 38 hours tacked on to a series of 18 hour work days before it.

But, we're on the road and should be in Denver soon!

Ahhh ... here is "home" for so many coming hours. It may not look like it, but underneath all that stuff our event gear is packed in quite the organized fashion!