Hoping for the Best...

...preparing for the worst.

It's my personal approach to modeling trips, and it has served me well. Often, things go about like I expect them to. There may be a delayed connection here, a traffic snag there, but nothing too crazy. Nothing like, say, a blizzard on I-80 right where I planned on being.

Yesterday afternoon I wrapped up my last shoot in the Bay Area. From there, I planned on heading across I-80 to Salt Lake City to pick up a few more shoots on my way home. Alas, things didn't go quite as I had planned. Checking the weather on the passes revealed a line of cars inching along a solid white roadway. Yegh. Chains or 4WD were required for all vehicles, neither of which I have. Even if I did pick up chains, I was not convinced that the pass would even be open by the time that I arrived. Plan B? Detouring south through Mojave and Las Vegas, then coming back north through Utah. Ouch.

It can be tempting to schedule shoots thisclose together. Wrap up one shoot at 2, make the half hour drive to the next spot, start shooting again at 3. Finish shooting in one city in the evening, drive 8 hours to the next and be shooting again the next morning. But it's a gamble. Appointments run over. Construction and traffic can wreak havoc on estimated drive times. Flat tires, inadequate directions, and any number of variables can throw a wrench into schedules.

Fortunately for me, I make a habit of planning for those wrenches. The extra time that I scheduled in for unpredictable delays allowed me to easily cover the additional distance. I even made it to SLC in time for lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, arranging a last-minute drawing session, and blogging- and I'll be refreshed and ready to go for my shoot this evening.