Debrief #1 – Roadtrip life

OK – so it’s been a bit quiet on the Blog front for few days, let’s debrief what’s been going on.

Latest roadtrip started early last Thursday morning, 4am to be precise, as I headed from the south coast to the west coast – and to photographer PesäKarhut in Pori. Two teams there, their Academy team – as well as the Superpesis team.

I am one to enjoy an early morning, but somehow when you HAVE to wake-up early, it is not as much fun as it is when you DON’T have to get up early.. still, 4am up in the camper.. quick breakfast and get on the road. Driving in the early hours is always great, there is no traffic – you see the sun starting to rise to welcome the new day.

The 3 1/2 drive went smoothly and I was at KarhuHalli in Pori – done photoshoots here the last couple of seasons, so knew where to park, where to carry things in.. setting up nice in time and ready for the first players to start arriving around 11am. First it was two hours with the Academy team, and then another two hours (after a short break) with the Superpesis team.

Good fun with both sets of players, and I think we got some cool photos for the season!

One thing I am NOT a fan of in KarhuHalli, is the darn red dust/clay/pebbles – honestly, it just gets everywhere and colors everything in red hue – feels like you are somewhere in the red dust of Australian outback.. So basically my black backdrop now has a nice little red hue on it. Will get that washed next weekend at home.

All in all – done and packed the photo-set around 15.30 – then sit in the car and think ‘Tomorrow I got a shoot in Joensuu…better start driving!’

The lovely part of van life/roadtrip is that you can choose where to park and sleep, and when.. then again, if you are like me then it might not always be such a good thing. Plotting Joensuu to the satnav, and arrival time should be around 23.35. After driving for about two hours – I stop at BestCaravan in Tampere, cook a dinner and feel tired right after, as you do. So get to the back of the car and pull the duvet over my head…

Three hours later…

Good rest and feel like it’s maybe good to get going again – so I won’t have that much to drive on Friday morning. So what happens, I drive all the way to Joensuu, arriving around 4am. The drive was great, once again – I night drive, few annoying trucks kept on pestering me to drive 90km/h on 80km/h zone (these are the same trucks that during the summer are driving 80km/h on the same roads… when the speed limit is 100km/h – go and figure that out!).

Stopped for 30minutes road side to look at Northern Lights at around midnight.. the little joys of life on the road.

Parked the car at the horse racing track parking lot in Joensuu – and ‘passed out’ on the bed .. after changing the gas bottle, so that I won’t freeze in the night.

Then around 11am it was time to head to set the photoshoot set-up once again, this time at Joensuu Areena – an Joensuun Maila (men’s and women’s teams!) photoshoots. Women’s turn first – and once again a very smooth and fun photoshoot – with some original poses for photos.. which I just love to see! Always nice when the players ask if they can do this or that pose.. so big props for that girls!

Supposed to have a 90minute break between the two teams – but as men’s team was ready earlier, decided that we can start earlier… gets me to be sooner 🙂

First one up for the men’s team – Juho Hacklin – this guy just is different, there is always something happening when he comes to a photoshoot.. and this year was no exception… I’ll keep you in the dark and you will surely see the results during the summer in various Social Media posts!! Just remember the name 😉

Other than that – pretty smooth going, maybe started to feel the last day at the end – if I counted it right, to the end of the Joensuu photoshoot… in the last 40 hours – I had been awake for 35 of those, had been in photoshoots/setting-up for about 20 hours, driving for about 11 hours. So yeah, maybe there was some reason why I felt a little light headed in the end.

Luckily after I had packed the car – I only had two minute drive to the camping area in Joensuu, that was about as far as I could drive. Park the car, cook some pasta, have a shower .. SLEEP!!!

Rest was definitely needed – as on Saturday morning, the nose of the car was pointing north – as the 7 hour drive to Simo in Lapland, well – I was going to stop in Kempele for the night.. so only about 6 hour drive.