Divided #6 – Day 24
It would have been only a short drive from Brunswick, GA to Florida. But before we could go to the sunshine state we had to make a detour of a couple of hundred miles. Because of a communication problem, the marines had only given us the green light to visit them at Parris Island with a one week delay. Which forced us to drive up to South Carolina again. But if you look at our Instagram, you get the idea that it was well worth it…
After completing the shoot with 2 impressive marines drill instructors, we were on our way towards Florida. 100 days sounds like a lot, but to cover a country as large as the US, it really isn’t much. So instead of traveling all the way to Miami or at least Orlando, we were only able to drive through the panhandle, the Northwestern part of the state.
On our way to Panama City we drove by an industrial beehive, right after crossing from the Eastern to the Central time zone. The main bee keeper, a Romanian who just happened to become a US citizen that week, happily agreed to be photographed. He just warned us that his bees had a particularly bad day. We were a bit surprised to hear that, but he explained, that bee hives had good and bad days indeed. And the bees really tried to attack, especially the black cameras, but we managed to complete the shoot with our brave model being stung five times, normal for him, and Mathias only being stung in the face once, which was quite a success given the bees’ bad disposition that day.
And then the rollercoaster started. It went high up and way down. The 15th was Monika’s birthday and this was the opportunity to take our first day off since we had left Zurich. We booked an overpriced hotel with ocean view at the Redneck Riviera and had a spectacular day at the beach. The fact alone to stay at the same place for 2 nights in a row was extraordinary. We hadn’t done it since leaving New York. Elias and Mathias built an enormous sandcastle while Monika got to enjoy the beach and the sun. Our brilliant hotel didn’t have any real glasses so we drank champagne out of plastic cups on our balcony at sunset. It had been a fantastic day and a well deserved short break.
And then came the next day. Maybe the worst day of our trip so far. It started with a photo shoot that never happened and continued with a runaway model. The day before we had met a beach photographer who wanted to take a picture of us. She looked like a great portrait to us and so we asked her if we could take her picture. She was really excited and we agreed to do the shoot the next morning at our hotel.
All was ready at 9.30 am on Thursday – except the beach photographer. We sent text messages to no avail. Mathias even managed to get her on the phone, where she explained, in a hungover voice, that she was in a meeting and that she would call back. Of course that never happened and after 1.5 hours of waiting, we started to look for somebody else. After all the studio was set up and ready. We managed to find a young woman with an incredible story. She was only 21 and had already survived a very aggressive form of cancer. She wanted to be photographed and tell her story. The first part worked out fine until her brother showed up and demanded that she would have to come with him now. He was very adamant and so she complied, but not without assuring us that she would be back in 5 minutes to do the interview and sign the model release. We never saw her again and so her portrait will join the small collection of images that will never be used because of a missing model release.
We weren’t in the best mood when we packed our car up. But things got worse. Our car started acting up. Ever since West Virginia an engine warning light was on. And ever since then we were trying to find a Mercedes garage that could find out what the problem was. But there are 2 problems with Mercedes garages: They are pretty hard to find because there are so few of them, and if you do find one the only guy who can work with Sprinter vans is either on holiday, sick or booked out for the next 3 days.
So it was a great relief when the Mercedes garage in Pensacola agreed to check our van. After a 2.5 hours drive, we were informed at the garage that things had changed and that their Sprinter guy wouldn’t have time to look at our car before Monday now. It must have been our sheer desperation that caused one of the sales guys trying to help us. He made a few calls and finally found a garage in Alabama that agreed to check our car early next morning. Tisred and frustrated we drove for another 90 minutes to Mobile, hoping for the best.
