 Welcome to the Valley Advocate Podcast, featuring interviews that take us deeper into the people and happenings on the local scene. For more podcasts and a closer look at what's going on in the valley, visit us at valleyadvocate.com. Hi, this is the Valley Advocate Podcast. My name is Dave Isastatter. I am the editor of the Valley Advocate. I'm here with Gina Bevers, who's the arts editor. And we are here with Michelle Pompriand and Elaine Laney Wood. And we are talking about Laney and Michelle's photo safari. Yeah. Talking too excited. Yeah, okay. I know. Yeah. What is a photo safari? Well, we go to each town in Massachusetts and we take photos. Yeah. Okay. 351. 351. 351 cities and towns. Yeah. How many have you been to? Like 120. Okay. 120. And when did you guys start? November 2016. 14. 14. Oh my gosh. See what happens is we're slow about it because we just don't go through a town and take pictures and leave. We go and we spend the whole day in the town. Wow. And we talk to people. We get to know like what they're proud of. We usually go to the police department and talk to the police. And then we fight if there's anything unique in the town and then we go and find it and take photos of it and we let people suggest what we want to do. I think it's pretty awesome you go to the police department. I don't know why. They know everything in town. That's why. They just make me laugh because I live in there and I can imagine you walking into the where police department. We did. We did. We did. And they're so friendly, right? They probably offered you donuts and coffee. And where were they? The sergeant was forcing one of his newbies out. He said he made the rookie. He made him come out. We have masks. We have these two mascots. So he made his rookie. He didn't give it an option. Hold our two mascots. What are the mascots? They're a little stuffed animals. A pink one and a blue one. A pink like. Trixie and Skylar. One of them actually mine actually squeaks and talks. Well, it doesn't talk. It makes funny noise. The whole point was like we were going to use those in the photos that we didn't have to actually get in them, but that flung on. Now you're the stars of the photos. We've had special guests, too. We had Mickey Mouse came one day and then a bear came another day. Is it a real bear? No. And it's become a joke, too. It's become a joke, too, because one day she showed up at cultural chaos when they had a ribbon cutting. And she says, oh my, in front of like 300 people, oh my god, I forgot the kids at home. So you should have seen the look she was getting and she didn't realize. And now it's a running joke. We'll be at the police department. You leave the kids in the car again knowing we're talking about the animals, but, you know, we get looks like what? For anyone who's just hearing the audio of this, I think it's great that one of you is wearing blue and one of you is wearing pink right now. Oh, I didn't even. It was unintentional. That's funny. Actually, I have the pink one actually. So it's really funny. It's opposite day. Yeah. It's opposite day. I'm just wondering, do you have like a method to your Massachusetts madness? Do you start in the west and move east to east to west north to south? What? No, something's going on in a town like like Stockbridge is having their craft fair or whatever. We'll focus on going there that day so we can see their big event. And then fluff festival was an example. Specific day. We went to Summerville. We focused on going that day because it was their fluff festival. Okay. Which was fun. And they're zigzagging across the state. Yeah. We had to go to my mother's house once in Weymouth and she was moving out here to west and west. And so we did Weymouth that day. So yeah, there's specific reasons to go to, or one day we'll just say let's go here. And that's what we do. I used to live in Summerville when I never made it to the fluff festival. You have never been? Oh, it's fun. It is packed. It is packed. That makes sense because I grew up in Ohio and we did not have fluff. I did not hear about fluff until I moved to Massachusetts. What was it? What was it the 100th anniversary this year? So what do they have like fluffing things? Everything. Everything. The band was selling fluffernutters for lunch. So there were kids walking around with bags of fluffernutters. Fried dough was really good with marshmallow fluff. And then they have the fluff busters. We got our pictures taken with the fluff busters. Are those like the ghost busters? Yeah, the ghost busters with the fluff busters. The girls. Not the boys. The girls. I love it. I'm imagining the logo with like a... Right, right, right. Like some fluff. Was it like that? It was really neat. And there was a line of people waiting to get photos too, so it was neat. What's been your favorite town? Favorite fun-wise? Florida maybe? Oh, that's the bathing suit. Florida Massage. Yeah, in February we went up to Florida Mass looking for the beach. In our bathing suits. It was the coldest day of the year that day. It was snowing. And her and I jumped out of the car. We brought a friend knowing that we'd have like time to... And possible frostbite. Yeah, so I was like, we're literally at our bathing suits and we've got these little plastic cups and holding the cups up and we've got our little mascots and little beach chairs with a beach ball. Well, the beach ball blew into the snow and our friend Joe had to go climb through the snow to get the beach ball back. And this was your favorite one. Yeah, yeah. So then we went further down Route 2. Because we're right on Route 2. We're standing in front of Florida sign looking for the beach. So then we went further down and we saw the frozen waterfall and we're like, hey, let's pretend we're at a waterfall. So we stood in front of the waterfall making it look like we were at a frozen waterfall. I was saying, we couldn't find a beach. We found a waterfall. Nice. When you back up in one of the photos and here we are right on Route 2. So, yeah, it was fun. And then their town hall ended up being just a house. Yeah, we're not even sure that it's a town hall yet. We're still waiting to find out. So for purposes of navigation, Florida is in the northwest corner. Yes. Of Massachusetts going up near Peru. Near the corner. Not the corner, but yeah. But we did go to a corner. It's just before Red Adams. We went to, oh yeah, yeah, sorry. No, we heard you. We went to the Tri-County, like the Tri-State marker. We had a hike. Yeah. We saw a throttle thing. Twice we had the hike. Yeah, because the first time you were having this climb up ledge, I can't. So you can actually get to a point where it's Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. Three corners. Yes. It was really neat. We never even knew that existed. Yeah. There's a bunch of them. There's three. Isn't there one of them? One of them's in the middle of the Connecticut River, right? Yeah. In the ocean. Right. So I have to ask, what was your least favorite? Ooh, that's a very good question. Waitly. Waitly. And here's, do you want to know why? Do you want to know why? Yes, we would like to know. Here we are dressed up in dresses and we always wear sun hats because I've had skin cancer, so I don't want to be standing outside. We go to the police departments and we ask what we can take photos of. And we like taking photos of cruisers and we try to get fire trucks, but not always because it's a Sunday. We only do this on Sundays. Sure. They're not usually outside on Sundays. So we asked, we told them what we were doing. I introduced myself and her and I was like, we'd like a photo of the cruiser, but it was in a garage and he'd open the garage door and he said, no, you can't have a photo. I was like, excuse me? Why not? He goes, no, we can't do that. I was like, but we, we're doing all the cruisers in every town. He's, I can't do that. I was like, he says, well, I'd have to ask the chief and it's, I said, then get a hold of them. We actually were in a town where they had snowmobiles and they, he had to ask permission to take them out or, or open the, the, what's it called? The trailer that was in. So he needed permission to get, to open it for us. And so the chief said, oh yeah, go ahead. And this is on a Sunday. So I said, you'll, he'll save time. I'm not going to do that. I can't. I was like, so you're going to go with this. This is your final answer. You're not going to let's take a photo of the cruiser. Right. And I went to another town. Was it three weeks later? He went to South Hadley and the South Hadley chief was so upset. He wanted us to go back. I said, no, he had his chance. 351 cities and towns. And this guy says, no, we can't take a photo of a, you know, taxpayer funded cruiser. I don't think so. Yeah, that's very crummy. Yeah. Is there, is there any town that you're like saving for, maybe not saving for last, or that you're looking forward to with the three, four months? Boston's going to be like a couple of days kind of thing. It's just so much. We want to do freedom trail and, you know, and you got to make time to get lost. Yeah. Yeah. You can do that here in Northampton now. Yeah. So Boston, huh? That's a lot of, it's going to be a lot of time to do that. So are you going to choose a particular event that's happening in Boston? Oh, that's, yeah. Hey, I don't know. We haven't gotten that far yet because we're trying to get western mask done. Okay. So it was. What do you think is next on the list? Well, we're still, we still have to keep posting because we're kind of behind on the posting. Yeah. Because well, last, last, last spring we were going to, we were going to post photos to the days it rained. It never rained all summer. We're allowed Sundays. So it's like we never had a posting day. So we're catching up now. Yes. That's a good point. Yeah. Cause her and I both work. So it's like we do this on Sundays and we try to do, you know, we try to find time and I've been sick for a few months. So it's been tough. So essentially what sounds like we need is a reality show. I like it. It is a lot of fun. I mean, there was. We meet so many people. Yeah. We met a group of people that were just going to all the cemeteries in Massachusetts. There are two couples. Good time. Yeah. And they gave us good point. They sent us to Great Barrington to see the Cedric Pie, which is like hundreds of people buried in a circle from the Cedric family, which is Cure Cedric's ancestors. Oh, the Cedric's. Yeah. And mom, that was buried there. So that was amazing. We learned that from them. Right. So just talking to these people. I forgot that the Cedric's were from Massachusetts. Right. So that was amazing. And then we met these other people that were doing the Appalachian Trail because the Appalachian Trail was right there. That's so cool. Yeah. And there's a few places where that crosses. That guy is invited us back to his house in Beverly when so when we go to Beverly we're going to go see them. Yeah. Beverly, Massachusetts. Yeah. Yeah. And you guys, you guys brought in a map, right? Yeah. Where you've been. I want to see it. Yeah. The pink is. You have to be really crinkly with it. So our audio listeners can. Oh, sorry. That's so cool. So you got, do you have, I'm seeing. I don't have my glasses on. All of Hampshire County, almost all of Hampton County, like looks like two thirds of Franklin County. John, just we've been to all of them and like we might have to go back to a specific event in some place. It seems to me that you completely discriminated against Worcester County. Well, I lived in Worcester County for 15 years. So it's like we actually places I want to go back to and specific things, but it's just, we were trying to get this done first. Okay. Okay. And then work our way east. Okay. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's amazing. It is amazing. It's like so cool. Such a great project. Michelle is our circulation manager, which we didn't say at the beginning. I'm sorry, Michelle. Which I forgot to say. That's no big deal. But it's because you're the one who's responsible for getting us to all of the towns that we go to. That's right. And it's just so cool that you're like... Well, you know what's funny is she asked in Granby. She asked, well, what's there in Granby to do? She was asking all the customers on her route. Yeah. Nobody knew anything about, oh, there's nothing to do in Granby. There's nothing. We had so much fun in Granby because there's dinosaur tracks and there's dinosaurs all over Granby. And then we saw so many cool photos in Granby. So it's really funny that, you know, Middlefield, was that where, where's it? Yeah, Middlefield. Where's it? It is in Middlefield. It is in Middlefield. There's a name. And that was from Middlefield, Connecticut. There's a Middlefield mass and it has a really cool waterfall. But see, we didn't know this. But it was... There's a grave called it. All it says is it. That's just creepy. So we had to sign it. But it's old. It's way before Stephen King. No, that makes it even creepier. I'm sorry. Is that like the movie it? It's just this grave that says it. And then we couldn't find it. So we were walking through this. And we were making jokes about it. Where is it? I don't understand where it is. I can't find it. I don't know where it is. And then we found it and somebody had hit it with their car. So we found a crime scene in Middlefield in the middle of nowhere. The license plate thing was broken off there. There was tire tracks. Somebody actually ran it over. And then pushed it right into the woods. Right behind the woods. Yeah. Literally. We just broke some news. I know. Oh no, it gets better. We go to the front because it was behind the town hall. It was this little cemetery. We go to the front and we said, oh, we'll find out where the police station is. Well, there's a sign in the town hall and it said open Wednesday 6 to 9. We're like, I'm serious? It's a crime. There's a crime. By Wednesday, I had long since forgotten about it. So I never called and I never, we haven't even posted the photos yet for it. Well, they must have come in on that Wednesday and said, what happened to it? I don't know. You could see the tire tracks. It's like somebody has to be taken care of that cemetery. It was probably one of them. Yeah. Okay. I thought you were like that. Yeah, that's right. That's the first crime scene we run across and we were on this safari. We have so much fun like laughing. We laughed hysterically in West Hampton. We used to GPS. I knew kind of knew where I was because I have a friend that lives up there and he was sending me somewhere to the town hall and I'm like, this isn't how to get to the town hall. So I said, Paz, let's follow it. It was sending us down this dead end dirt road that ends and so we get out of the car and start walking with the GPS and she's laughing. She ends up on the ground laughing. I have photos of her on the ground laughing. It wasn't even fit for horses. We got to fill a horse farm and she's like, I wouldn't even take my horses down that car track. Oh, man. And it was telling us to go that way. There was a mailbox there that said WTF. Yeah. How did you get here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of our staff people lives in West Hampton and I went to her house and I got completely lost. Yeah, it's because there are dirt roads out there in some places. Yeah, there's one. And it was telling us and I'm like, I don't think this goes anywhere. So, yeah. So we thankfully knew where I was. Now we have it better. We use this Waze app now. It's much better. Waze is great. I love Waze. Waze is very good. So how do people find out about this? Like, where do they go to? Well, right now it's on Facebook but we're trying to start a blog but we can't come up with a name for the blog. What's wrong with your name? Yeah, because it has nothing to do with Massachusetts. So when somebody's searching... You need the keywords. Yeah, we need a keyword to make the blog. And then we'll start blogging because she's a really good writer. I'm the photographer and the, you know, I'm the chauffeur. So we say the name again. Laney and Michelle's Photo Safari. Okay, yeah. Well, maybe you don't have to be Massachusetts-specific because... Well, we're the producer of your reality show. Oh, thank you. I was saying that if we get you the funds... Yeah. I'm so moneyed up. Yeah. Once you finish Massachusetts, what happens? Oh, good. Oh, then I have my next project. You didn't want to know when my next project is? Yeah. I want to hike the 90 miles of the Massachusetts. I'm not going with her on that. Are you sure? Yes. Okay. You're on your own. I'm going to camp out. So I have to start soft, you know, slow by like sleeping on the porch. Well, listen, I got her out of her bubble because she wouldn't talk to strangers unless it was in a store where she was working. And now I've got her like, I'll say, go and ask them to hold the stuff. And she will. She'll go up to complete strangers now and talk to them. And it's the coolest thing. You talk to strangers that are hardly in stock. She's totally out of her shell. Communities now. Yeah. She's gotten very good at it. Yeah. And I can talk to anybody, anywhere, anytime and start a conversation. And so now she's starting to do it. And I'm really proud of her. She's done really well. I'm still cringing a little bit. Okay. Cringe on the inside. Talk on the outside. I've actually taken that she won't do it because she's gone to a couple other states, but I actually took the kids on, I used to take my mother out on a schooner on the coast of Maine because she's been doing it for 20-something years. And I brought the kids with me when she brought me two years ago. And so I brought them out on the boat and people were taking photos with them. So they've actually been on vacation. That's fun. Yeah, but she won't take, she's afraid she's going to lose them. They actually, Trixie, my pink one, she actually has family at Yankee Candle. She's actually, there's a bunch of, but we're looking for Skylar's family. We haven't seen Skylar's family yet, but Trixie has family at Yankee Candle. He's still an orphan. This could be solved. It's been a lot of fun. And people, we tag the places we go, like the businesses, and the police departments. Yes, we've had a couple funny responses. Randolph said, jeez, we wish we had known you were coming. We would have washed the cruiser. And she's like, no, no, no. We've had worse cruisers than yours as far as dirt. I have a dirty cruiser. I keep track of the dirty cruiser. Yeah, yeah. Sutton had a dirty one. You see the cruisers you never know when they meet Michelle. On the prowl. And some officers don't want their photos taken. So we don't, you know, we ask them, would you like, or they're undercover. Oh, one of them was. Whatever that is. Yeah, yeah. In one of the towns, he didn't want to be in it because he does undercover in different towns. So he didn't want his photo taken. And we don't do unmarked cruisers because just we don't. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun. And we are learning so much. I learned stuff about North Hampton. I grew up in North Hampton in June. What are the North Hampton's dirty secrets? Well, I know though. I've never seen Calvin Coolidge's house. And I grew up here. And I never knew where his house was. So that's one of the things. Where is his house? Woodlawn Avenue. I actually know this. Massesawyer Street. Massesawyer Street. I used to live right by there. There's a big stump in front of it. There used to be a tree. We started in East Hampton and we were driving to North Hampton. And I'm like, what are we doing? I grew up here. I couldn't, other than like, look park and academy music, I'm like, what else? Because we do a minimum of three things in each town. Regardless. And I'm thinking, what are we doing in North Hampton? And so we come down. We're coming down Route 10. And all of a sudden, we looked to our right at the Academy Music. And there's three guys standing in costume and period costume holding, I forget what they're called. Sticks. Sticks. They're sore, not swords, but like, it's what they used back in. Lances. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, yeah, lances. So they're standing out there in costume. And I'm like, what? Oh my God. Photo op, photo op. So we come around the corner. We park. We get out of the car. We start talking to the three guys standing out there. They're actors. And it was, and it was called Yeoman of the Guard. It was valuelette opera. And so I asked, I saw somebody all dressed in black knowing she was a director. And I was like, excuse me, can you take our photo? So we went in front of the Academy, had our photos taken with the mascots and with their, so we were telling the director what we were doing. And it was our first day. And this woman was listening to us. She goes, after we were done with the photo, she says, would you guys like to go to, I have extra tickets. And I'm like, we looked at, I'm like, I don't know, this is our first day. If we go to this, we're not doing our safaris. This is the first day. We ended up going to our first opera. I'd never been to an opera before. Oh, it was so fun. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it. It was, it was real. It was funny. I had no idea how funny it was going to be. So that was neat. That was our first day. Funny. Nothing better than. Yeah. Yeah, it was great. Well, you guys got to do the blog. I mean, I'm just, She's such a good writer. And she's so funny. Like she writes funny things on the photos. You've got the, you've got the Valley Advocate editorial department. We're going to workshop your title. I want to get a name. We can come up with a name. That's not even a key name. Because I've already got the, yeah, I need, because this would be fun. And we can actually keep up with it too. And she, because her and I were going through these it jokes the whole time we were on our way up to Middlefield and all the way back. So we sat down and we're like, I forgot everything I said. So it's like, we need to, yeah, we need to be a little more organized, but. And you know, Michelle, this might take off and over might see it. Oh man. She's like, no. I can't wish for those things. Michelle's a big Oprah fan. Very big Oprah fan. Yep. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you guys for coming in. Oh, thanks for having us. And when you guys are like, when you, like, when you guys have 350 and you're going to do 351, let us know. Let us know. And there's a couple of places that are tough to get to. I actually, I was a volunteer with the Red Cross for quite a few years. And the woman that was a director at the time, she was a director at the time. She was a director at the time. She was a director at the time. She was a director at the time. She was a director at the time. The woman that was a director at the time, she says, there's one place she went when she was, I think in college maybe, she went to every city in town. And she said, there's one place where you have to get a boat to go to, like once you're on, I don't remember where there's an Antucket or Martha's Vineyard. I think it was, I think it was Gosnold, I think. There's some place where you have to ask somebody to give you a ride in a boat over to this town. I mean, that's the problem. That's the problem. Yeah. Okay. All right. I think that. Yeah. I think it's a pilot and I'm trying to convince him to take me to Martha's Vineyard and he, it's always our schedules. No, the ferry is the best way to get to Martha's Vineyard. That's what everybody says. We're trying to do this for free. So, you know, I don't, yeah. So far, everybody's been really wonderful about getting us in, getting us into where we need to go. But there was one place in Worcester. Well, I can't let you in to take a, oh, I want to support of a building. Well, I can't let you do that. I forget where we were. And then another place we couldn't get in, all in Worcester. Everybody's been wonderful except Worcester so far. Worcester's been discriminated against. Yeah. They wouldn't let us up in it. We were right there at three o'clock and we had to wait in line to speak to the people and they said, well, let's close at three. I was like, well, I was here before three. It just took forever to get up front and they wouldn't let us up to take a photo. Well, better not look next time. Yeah, yeah. No, there'll be no next time. If somebody turns us away, I'm not going back. This is it. Yeah. It's tough. Especially with Waily. I was really upset about that. I mean, everybody's been wonderful, you know. The police departments have been getting a really hard time and everybody's been wonderful. Yeah, Butterfly Museum. The owner of the Butterfly Museum. That was great. Before he died, he brought us through and gave us a tour. He gave us a tour and told us how it started. It was really a neat story. That's cool. Well, thanks, you guys. Thanks. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. Thanks for listening and don't forget to visit us at valleyadvocate.com. Thank you.