College Roadtrip to Florida for Pinup Calendar Photo Shoots Was Crazy

Church Van From Hell

I will always remember my first trip to Florida. I remember it not only because it was my first visit to the Sunshine State, but because it was the first time I visited there for a "photographic trip" for the 1991 "Women of the Scarlet & Gray" calendar - which featured female students enrolled at The Ohio State University. Insane things occurred during the 21-hour road trip in "the van from hell" (as the female models who participated in the trip affectionately dubbed the van).

To fully appreciate what an effect this road trip had on everyone, there are a few things you must know:

Before I began shooting my own photos, I hired other photographers to do the job. I had a tough time finding the type of model photographer I needed. Either they were very professional, but created lackluster photos or they created incredible photos but were a bit of a Prima Donna. For my first trip, I chose the latter.

No one knew what to expect during the trip. I had always been denied the chance to go on Spring Break to Florida because of my work. I chose St. Petersburg as our location. Why? I chose St. Petersburg solely because its name sounded good!

Also, no one had ever worked together before.

I paid 100 percent of the cost of the trip. I had a very limited budget and was way over budget even before departing for the trip. Every 10 dollars spent came out of my pocket. It meant $10 I could not spend on groceries or rent for myself. Needless to say, I was highly motivated to limit travel costs!

No Transportation Scheduled

Two weeks before departing, we still could not locate a vehicle for our road trip because of the busy vacation rental season. The model photographer I hired, Paul Ross, had me talked into his insane plan he devised for both of us to drive 3.5 hours to Indianapolis before departing for Florida to pick up two rental mini-vans at the airport and each drive one back to Columbus.

As the day for departure grew closer, I realized how ridiculous it would be to drive to Indianapolis thenonto Florida.

Also, I doubted anyone would be willing to drive to Indy to return the vans after returning from Florida. So, with one week remaining before we were to depart for Florida, I telephoned every auto rental agency I could find in the phone book until I found a brand new, sparkling royal blue 15-passenger van for rent a half-hour's drive away at a car dealership in Marysville, Ohio.

There was one catch. A family was scheduled to pick up the van the next day. If they rented it, the van would not be available for our trip.

I called later that day at closing time to see if the family had picked up their van. . . they had not. So, I promptly reserved that van!

The dealership agreed to rent the van, provided I could return it in time for another family to pick it up.

I was desperate, and knew in advance that we were going to keep the van one day later than the deadline. But, I kept quiet.

Something Goes Wrong at Last Minute

With many years experience. I strongly advise anyone preparing for a production trip to finish preparations the day prior to departure. There are always tasks that unexpectedly as leaving time draws near. So, one needs time to complete those unexpected tasks. However, this was my first time planning a production. This was a big one - and I was very disorganized.

Underwear Scattered

Things started getting rough the night prior to departure. I did nothing except prep for the production for the week prior to departing. I stayed up all night pulling together files, maps and notes. I neglected to do any personal prep for myself, such as laundry, packing , and banking,

First, my apartment building's dryer was unexpectedly broken. I had to scatter my wet clothes throughout my room to dry. I lived in a one bedroom efficiency apartment that that doubled as an office whenever I had visitors. So, there was not much room to dry clothing.

So, I did whatever I could at the last minute, went to bed at 5 am and rose again five hours later at 10am.

(Those dishes never got cleaned and were thrown away upon my return three weeks later because they were encrusted with moldy Spaghetti O's.)

We had announced plans to depart at 2 p.m. The first model, Jenna Santangelo, showed up at my door at 11:30 a.m. I left her alone in my apartment among the scattered underwear, so I could hurry to Marysville to pick up our rented van.

Overbooked!

Driving back to Columbus with my huge van, everything seemed fine. I smiled like a kid who was borrowing his dad's car for the weekend -- revving the engine, tuning the radio, trying all the features and fixing the rear view mirror. Just then, my eyes bulged wide open!

In the rear view mirror, I could see the dealership removed the wrong seating. (I had asked the dealership to take out a three-seat bench so we had room for luggage.) Why was this a problem? We were a budget operation and were planning to pack all 12 calendar girls and photo crew in one van. The dealership had removed a four seat bench. The van now fit only 11 passengers.We had 12!

I drove to the next exit, turned around and went all the way back to Marysville to the dealership to switch benches. As dealership staff took their time to switch seats at 1:30pm, I phoned back to see how many girls were in my little room.

Since many female models had been 45 minutes to an hour late for photo shoots the year prior, I assumed this year's crop of girls would be similarly late. I was wrong. I asked Jenna how many girls had arrived.

"Oh, they're all here!" Jenna said.

Imagine it, nine girls and a hair stylist packed into my tiny 12-by-12 foot room. They were all intermingled with my underwear scattered around the room left to dry. I felt a little stressed.

Time for a Trailer

I still had to take the van took to U-Haul for a rooftop luggage carrier. As workers lowered the luggage carrier onto the van's roof, the manager, who had been doing paperwork up until this time, looked up and stopped them. He told me due to "liability reasons," I would have to rent a trailer and hitch. It meant $150 more in cost. More expense meant more stress.

Disorganized Wagon Train

I drove back to my apartment. Can I stress again how small my apartment was? Driving this massive van home with the 12-foot trailer attached to its rear, looked and felt like a wagon train. Don't ask how hard the train was to park.

Swimsuit calendar with no swimsuits

I loaded the girls' luggage into the trailer. We were ready to go! But, Paul Ross was nowhere to be found. So we waited. When he showed up an hour or two later, we took off. Before leaving for Florida, we had to pick up swimsuits.

Although Paul had assured me it would not be a problem to wait until departure to pick up our model's swimsuits, a problem arose. . . a big problem.

It seems the store suddenly changed their terms and wanted a massive amount of money before they would release the swimsuits "as a deposit." They wanted about $900 for these swimsuits that barely filled a small box. This was bogus, but we needed swimsuits for our photo shoot! Paul got angry and blew his lid and started yelling at the store clerk. The girls attempted to "sweet-talk" the clerk. No dice. They wanted cash.

Let's Moon em

After an exchange of some colorful language between Paul and the store manager, about half the girls got out of the van and mooned the store, its employees and customers. I was always the one stressed, aware of teetering on financial disaster at any moment due to my low cash flow. So, I wanted to get out of there. The store's manager came out and wrote down the registration number of our U-Haul trailer.

After our license plate got recorded, I wanted to get the heck out of the area immediately, especially since the trailer was rented in my name.

But, the model photographer insisted on stopping to the Warehouse Club nearby to purchase "refreshments." The area of town where the swimsuit store was located had very busy traffic and I was getting antsy. There was a lot of traffic. So, there we were: in this massive convoy of a van and trailer, driving around the area for a half hour while I was on the lookout for police cars who might be searching for the mooners. More stress!

Delays happen

We finally drove onto the highway at 6 p.m., more than four hours after we had originally told models we would depart. Within 10 minutes, I noticed something: Paul, who insisted on being behind the wheel during the entire drive to Florida, was a terrible driver. Now remember, I had only received five hours sleep. Although I had planned to catch a few winks in the van, I was forced to monitor his driving so he didn't have a wreck. I must have shouted "watch it" 500 times between Ohio and Atlanta. This meant no sleep for me.

Before we passed the first highway exit – one of the models needed to "pee." Then another 5 miles later. Then another. It seemed like these girls had to urinate constantly throughout the drive!

Bad weather

Heavy rain hit us during our drive through the mountains. Incredible winds pushed the van from side to side as Paul drove 85, struggling with the van's wheel and the length of our van and trailer. The models could see out the rear windows and kept saying the U-haul trailer, which was designed to be driven only at 45 MPH, was airborne at points.

Girls moon and smoke Pot

During a stop at a restaurant called Jerry's in Tennessee, half the girls smoked a pot in the bathroom. We sped on down the highway with giggling girls in the back. The rest of us were stressed out.

Lack of sleep

By Atlanta, I succumbed to sleep deprivation and accepted the fact I couldn't stay awake any longer. At that one point of my life, I didn't care whether I lived or died (which was a distinct possibility with Paul's driving). I desperately wanted sleep! I nodded off, not waking until we reached the Florida border.

I was not the only person in the van who was tired. Sleeping on the road was an interesting challenge for the girls in back too. Wahlea Bradley decided to sleep on the floor beside the van's sliding side door. She kept asking everyone if the door was locked. It wasn't.

Nude Beaches

Almost nothing fazes me. I didn't pay much attention when the Paul kept talking about how he knew the locations of nude beaches in Florida and how important it was that he finish photo shoots in time "to go nude swimmin'."

When he encouraged me to join him, I declined. However, the models were not as conservative.

As soon as we crossed the state line into Florida, the girls started getting excited. Imagine my fright when a couple of them yelled: "Where can we tan nude? and Are there any nude beaches down there?"

Paul immediately looked over excitedly. His eyes bulged wide open like a carton character.

"Did you hear that, man!!!," he exclaimed. "They want to know where the nude beaches are! Did you hear that! Huh, Huh? They want to go nude swimmin'!" He was beside himself with joy. I thought to myself "Oh, crap."

Paul got his wish. Paul and a few of the models went skinny dipping with him in our condo's pool a few days later.

Getting Lost

Give someone a road map and they start getting ideas! It seems the Florida Road Guide we purchased in Ohio showed a road into Clearwater/St. Pete that was about a quarter inch (on the map) from the ocean. Paul decided he wanted to scout the coastline for possible photo shoot locations. What no one realizes was that a quarter-inch on a map equated about four miles in reality.

Instead of staying on the road, we found ourselves in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic, inching down a congested road. On board were 12 cranky sleep deprived models and crew – all in need of showers.

Paul's Stevie Wonder Imitation

Our detour added another hour to our drive. Stress. But, there was more stress to be had: is not all: Paul became excited once we neared St. Pete and started mimicking Stevie Wonder when a song played on the radio. Wearing sunglasses, swinging his head back and forth and all. "I just called . . . to say . . . I love you . . ."

When the girls did not notice his imitation, (because they were behind him), he angled his body toward the back of the van so they could see him. As he turned, he started tilting the wheel back and forth as he did the "Stevie shaking head routine."

As Paul sought to impress the models, I looked out my passenger side window -- disgusted at almost everything.

A church van elevates you high above other vehicles, much like a semi-truck. I looked down to the car next to me. I'll never forget the horrified look on women's face in the car in the next lane as we came within four inches of sideswiping her car. I tried yelling to Paul to avoid a collision, but he was too busy being "Stevie" and we inched us even closer to her car! Stress.

Hell Tuesday

We experienced many problems during our disorganized photo shoot in St. Pete. "Hell Tuesday" occurred three days after arriving. The girls dubbed Tuesday"Hell Tuesday" because so many fights with Paul that day. They models all decided they wanted to go home. Airlines were phoned. Kristin Herold had memorized the Greyhound bus schedule. After some blow-out fights, we made it through a tough week and Paul photographed excellent photos. At the time, I felt I could not stand Paul. However, his supreme talent behind the camera became apparent once fans of our calendar saw his work. Their enjoyment made any stress experienced during our travel worthwhile. Photographers are cantankerous. You hire them for their art, not for their organizational ability and people skills.

The final van rental problem arises

I was to stay in Florida and await for the male models and a different model photographer who were to arrive the day the female models left for Ohio. While in Florida, I checked my voicemail and found several messages from the dealership.

It seemed in my haste to rent a van, I had miscalculated the day we would return. The van was due that same day! We were not just keeping the van one day late, we were actually returning the van two days late.

I listened to a series of recorded messages let by the Marysville dealership. They had recorded several messages, each increasing in hostility with each subsequent message. However, I could do nothing. It was after closing hours. Plus, we were 1200 miles away. I hung up the phone, kept my mouth shut and went to sleep.

With a devilish grin, I waived good-bye to Paul and the female models as they left the condo's driveway the next morning.

So, as I lay snug and comfy, soaking up sun on a peaceful beach, Paul returned the van to a very angry dealership. To make things even worst, he ended up returning it a third day late. I could only imagine a vision of ranting and raving middle-aged car dealers running out as Paul pulled into the dealership back with their missing van!

As a courtesy to the dealership, Paul washed out all the "sand fleas" that models tracked into the van.