I have always respected our justice system (and thought for awhile I’d actually do something with forensics), and can honestly say I avoid illegal activity like the plague. The worst thing I’ve done is speed 8 over on a highway. I’ve never smoked anything in my life, never taken illegal drugs, never stolen anything (and in fact, when I was four I felt guilty even taking a piece of glitter that had fallen off a dress in the dressing room), and have never gotten physical on any level. So imagine my surprise when I spent about ten minutes with a cop on Wednesday, and was reported into the system… Time for a great story!
They say the best stories in the south begin with, “Hay y’all, watch this!”
This one begins with, “Hey Jenn, let’s meet at the park!”
In case you’ve missed out on who Jenn is, she’s my intern that’s leaving soon to move to Georgia. I wanted to expose her to different sessions and show her some general basics at starting up a business, so I called up a friend (holla atcha Christina) and asked if she’d like to allow Jenn to practice on her. Thankfully she said yes, so I told Jenn how to get to the park and where to go. Right as I was picking Christina up, Jenn texted that she was there so we went ahead and may our way over there. I went to where she said she was but didn’t see her, so figured she must have gone to another part of the park. We drove around without any luck, so finally I called her. She stated she was where I told her, so we summed it up to that I just hadn’t seen her. As I pull up to that area, I see Jenn in her lovely black jeep stuck on the other side of a locked gate stating, “RESTRICTED AREA. DO NOT TRESPASS.” Immediately as I pulled up, my phone is ringing and Jenn is screaming, “I’M LOCKED IN! I can’t believe this!” – You could hear the panic in her voice, but Christina and I couldn’t help but die laughing. “Just hop the fence! If Tyler (her baby) is with you, I’m sure you could just toss him over!” – Cue Instigator!! Apparently when Jenn had arrived, the gate was open so she didn’t see that sign and went right on in. While she was waiting for me, someone else had gone back by and locked it back. As I began backing out to get the park services people to help us, I see a guy driving behind Jenn towards an open field. I begin honking my horn like crazy while Jenn jumps out of the jeep flailing her hands in the air at him. He turns around, and before he had even gotten up to us you could see his shoulders shaking as he chuckled at us. See, I’m not the only one getting an ab workout over this!
After we settled down, I began posing Christina for Jenn, and then allowed Jenn to take over a little. We did the photos we could while there, and then I realized a train had been stationed up the tracks. Given the new fresh paint job local gangs had given it, you could tell it had probably been sitting there for awhile. We weren’t really that worried about anything happening because A) like mentioned, it was obvious the train was there for awhile and therefor more trains wouldn’t be traveling there or else there’d be a wreck, B) even if the train decided to start moving, it’s highly doubtful it’d move backwards around a curve, and we’d also probably hear or feel if it started moving even in the slightest. We get up there and begin shooting, but shortly after I hear Christina mention a cop. I turn around and sure enough, a police car was sitting on the tracks while the officer watched us. We know we should probably peace out at this point because having an officer watch you is never a great feeling… but before we can do anything he’s turned his lights on. “Are you serious?!” said EVERYONE. Yep. He gets out and begins making his way up to us as we walked to meet him halfway.
Just before he gets up to us he yells out, “How’s it going, ladies?!”
“Uhhh… fine! How about you?!” 🙂
“Do you ladies know how dangerous this is? Let me give you some facts. Hundreds die every year from being hit by a train. Two people in this county alone.”
“Oh okay.”
“Also, I see you guys parked your cars over there. Do you know how dangerous it is to leave your cars parked?” What? I was really biting my tongue here because what else do you do with your car? Everyone has to park their cars. The great irony was that he parked his to come out to tell us not to park ours. “Yea, some other girl had parked her car while doing a session just like you guys, and someone broke in and stole all her things. I bet you have valuables in there, huh!” Actually…. I only had a diet coke sitting in there, and that’s what hit home for me. A nice ice cold diet coke on a hot summer day (okay, spring.. but it was like 85 out… so I’m saying summer). I’m fairly certain that if anyone stole that, I’d hunt them down.
He walked us back over to our cars and asked that we hand over our licenses so he could report us for trespassing. He said we are now in the system and if we are caught on the railroad tracks again then we will be arrested. I’m not even kidding. You see, they have a new law now that states you can’t be within 100 feet of a railroad track or else you could be fined and arrested. We walked away from that figuring out how to break the news to Jenn’s husband of how bad of an influence I am – you know, almost getting her arrested and getting her locked in a restricted area on her first session. We have some nice photos from it though! Enjoy!
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