Loop By The Numbers

Days back home:   5
Tears shed:  none
We’ve been home 5 days and nights, and it’s been wildly busy, a mixture of fun and work. Saturday, friends Jim and Phebe (who spent a week with us in the Keys) dropped by for coffee. Later son Ryan, his fiancée Jaime and 4 members of their extended family came to visit for a few hours. That night we had dinner with Bob’s sister Lynn and her husband David (who spent a week with us on the Tennessee River).  But Bob still managed to unload 18 bins from the back of the truck into our workshop.
Sunday friend Hobie came for coffee, then daughter Mackenzie and son-in-law Matt arrived mid-day and stayed through dinner. We didn’t accomplish much work but had an awfully nice time.
Finally Monday and Tuesday we got a lot of stuff done: groceries, laundry, unpacking the rest of the truck, sorting items to put away, Cathryn starting our 2012 tax return and Bob pressure-washing our decks which looked really scuzzy after 15 months of neglect. Dinner Monday night at Jim and Phebe’s house with our group of 7 neighbors made us feel we really were settled in back home! It’s great to be here.

Our Loop by the Numbers:
Statute miles traveled:  6,282
Days on cruise:  304
Days boat moved:  166 (55%)
Days boat stayed in port:  138 (45%)
Distance moved on travel days, range:  0.3 – 174 miles
Typical distance moved on travel days: 20 – 60 miles
Average miles traveled on days moved:  38
Nights in marinas:  58%
Nights at anchor or on lock walls or free town walls: 42%
Gallons of fuel used: 3,949 (including 798 miles before and after our Loop)
Average Price Per Gallon: $4.25
The first 8 months of our Loop, from the time we left Fort Pierce, Florida until we left the boat in Mobile, Alabama to go home for six weeks over the holidays, we moved the boat more often and further. During that time, we were driven by the seasons, always needing to keep moving so we wouldn’t get stuck in Canada or the Great Lakes and have to leave the boat to winter over when the marinas and fuel docks close for the season in September. That’s a reality for all folks who plan to do the Loop in approximately one year.
The portion of the trip after the holidays, all in Florida, resulted in fewer and shorter days of travel for us, as it’s easy to be in that area from November to April before it’s time to move north again.
We would add that we don’t think there’s any such thing as a “normal” Loop trip, mirroring the experience of most Loopers. Each boat’s journey is unique, and statistics like those we’ve offered above would vary widely depending on whose stats you read. Some people travel at higher speeds, spend most nights in marinas (especially folks with dogs for whom anchoring out is more complicated), and make fewer stops, but stay in each place longer. Others travel more slowly, make more stops or take multiple years to complete their Loop, and anchor out much more often. Some people eat dinner at restaurants most nights, while others cook on board their boats most nights. Some people take lots of side trips off the main Loop route, others take none. That’s part of the beauty of doing the Loop: you can tailor it to fit your lifestyle, your boat, your budget and your schedule, and make it exactly the trip you want it to be! We have yet to meet a Looper who wasn’t pleased with the choices they made in all those categories.
Up next: Reflections on the Loop, promised sometime within the week . . . really!

Home Sweet Home

Days on cruise control:  6

Distance traveled:  589 miles

Travel time:  10 hours, 30 minutes

Total trip odometer:  3,425 statute miles

It’s not like anyone held a gun to our heads and forced us to do it this way, but once we left Fort Pierce, with the exception of our day in Denver with Adrienne and Justin, we were 100% focused on getting this road trip over with! No stops for National Parks, museums, scenic overlooks, nothing. We drove all day, every day for six days, only stopping to re-fuel or change drivers. As on Next To Me, we’re co-Captains on road trips, changing drivers every 2-3 hours. Bob is still the Navigator, figuring out our route and stopping points each night, and Cathryn is still Keeper-of-Contact-With-People-We-Love, making phone calls, writing emails and texting with lots of folks.

We pulled out of Mountain Home, ID at 7am and by 9am  crossed into Oregon, state #12. The scenery turned greener, and the highway more winding with steep ups and downs.

We gained an hour as we crossed into the Pacific Time zone, and mid-day entered our home state, Washington, state #13 for this journey.

Heavy rain and an accident on the last mountain pass added considerable delay, then Friday afternoon traffic near Seattle slowed our travel further.  Finally at 4:30 we pulled into our driveway, happy to have the road trip behind us.

Next To Me and the Great Loop feel a long way away. This weekend we’ll compile some “Loop By The Numbers” statistics for publication here, and finally our “Reflections on the Loop” thereafter. Text messages from crew on Blue Heron, Jackets II, Wind Song, Proud Lady, The Zone and Second Wind remind us there are lots of our Looper friends still out there enjoying this Grand Adventure, and we treasure our time with each of them and hope they continue to enjoy smooth sailing.

Day Five and Weary of This Road

Days on cruise control:  5

Distance traveled:  788 miles

Travel time: 11 hours, 15 minutes

Total trip odometer:  2,836 statute miles

This trip from Fort Pierce, Florida to our home in Olalla, Washington is about 800 miles shorter than the same one we made in January 2012 in the opposite direction. Then, because it was January, we didn’t want to risk driving over the Continental Divide in the dead of winter, so we went south on Interstate 5 from Seattle to Los Angeles, then east on Interstate 10 all the way to Florida, over 4,000 miles one way. We’re glad it’s shorter this time.

We pulled out of Denver at 7am in cool, mild weather. They had a huge blizzard in the mountains a week ago, so we were happy to have no concerns this week. A couple hours later we crossed into Wyoming, state #9 for this trip.

Wyoming went on for a LOOOOONG time! But at least the scenery included mountains, some snow in the distance, and a few wild animals including elk and deer, though we got no photos of either.

And then it was Utah, state #10 where the mountains and rocks, up close instead of big but distant like Wyoming, were pretty, . . . . .

. . . . followed three hours later by Idaho, State #11.  We planned to spend the night in Twin Falls, ID further east, but we want tomorrow to be a somewhat shorter day, so kept going long after we were tired and tempted to quit.

Finally we pulled into Mountain Home, Idaho (a little east of Boise) and called it a day.

Another Day Living In The Truck

Days on cruise control:  4

Distance traveled:  317 miles

Travel time: 5 hours, 15 minutes

Total trip odometer:  1,937 statute miles (approximately one third the distance of The Great Loop, done in 4 days instead of 4 months)

We don’t look exactly like the Joads and their piled-high truck from John Steinbeck’s “"Grapes of Wrath”, but we sort of imagine we look that way to others. We’ve had the truck four years, but bought the canopy shortly before we left for our Loop trip so we could fill it with the many boating items we already owned at home, and didn’t want to buy in Florida to outfit Next To Me. In back we have two bicycles, 8 bins of boat stuff including dishes, pots, pans, blankets and bed sheets, toolboxes, extra fenders we brought from home, and lots more.

The backseat has a rod across it, holding all our hanging clothes, a small cooler for lunch foods so we don’t have to stop for a mid-day meal, plus our camera and computer equipment and overnight bags we take into a motel each night. So it’s chock-a-block full, and Bob warns Cathryn it’s heavier in back than the front, so be prepared to go very slowly if we get into snow or icy weather, as the front wheels may not have much traction or weight on them. It’s 4-wheel drive, so that helps.

The rest of Kansas looked about like the first half: brown, flat and empty. The statewide population density must be pretty low. At one point it was 29 degrees outside and raining, a long way from Florida weather!

Finally: “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore!” Crossing into Colorado brings us to State #8 since moving off Next To Me.

Eastern Colorado looks a lot like Kansas, but we could tell we were still climbing to higher elevation.

We gained an hour as we moved into Mountain Time near the border, so arrived at our Denver motel shortly after noon. Our daughter Adrienne was able to get off work a little early, so we drove to Boulder where her fiancée Justin works at Rally Software.

We forgot to take a photo of “the kids” at the restaurant where we had dinner, so here’s a photo of Adrienne and Justin taken last Christmas when they visited us at home. We had Dungeness Crab for dinner one night, a local favorite which Justin enjoys catching with our crab pots when they visit in the summer months.

Tomorrow is a layover day in Denver: no truck driving!

The Long Slog: Day 3

Days on cruise:  3

Distance traveled:  614 miles

Travel time:  9 hours, 30 minutes

Total trip odometer:  1,618 statute miles

Not a lot to report today except that we made a great deal of progress in achieving our goal of arriving in Denver tomorrow afternoon. Barring a blizzard or a truck break down, we should be there mid-afternoon Tuesday.

We left Conway, Arkansas at 7:30am, found the western half of Arkansas to be much prettier than the eastern half, and crossed into State #6 since leaving Next To Me.

There’s not much to say about Oklahoma except that it’s largely flat, brown and full of oil drilling rigs.

And several hours later we entered State #7 of this trip.

We were slowly gaining elevation all day, and by late afternoon were cruising along just below 2000 feet. Temperatures near Wichita were 36 degrees with heavy rain, and the wind blew hard enough to justify the many wind farms we saw along the way.

So at 5:30 we pulled into Ellis, Kansas (anyone ever heard of it?) and checked into tonight’s motel.

We do want to thank our many blog readers who sent emails in the past few days telling us who you are, where you live, and why you’re reading our blog. It’s great fun for us to receive these introductions! For those of you actively planning or dreaming about doing The Loop, we invite you to send us a link to your blog when you get started, or to ask questions if you have any. We owe a considerable debt to the folks whose blogs we read, and the folks who answered our many questions as we planned for our Loop, so it’s time for Payback!

A Day At “5 Over”

Days on cruise:  2

Distance traveled: 672 miles

Travel time: 11 hours, 30 mins

Total trip odometer: 1,070 statute miles

Still accustomed to waking early, we hit the highway at 7am, beating feet to Denver for a Tuesday arrival, in “horse back to the barn” mode at this point. It was barely light when we left. Soon after, we crossed into Central Time, so gained an hour, happily. And we spent the whole day setting the cruise control at 4-5 mph over the speed limit.

It rained, the sun came out, it rained again, and the sun came out again. Tupelo, Mississippi looked not so different from Aurora Avenue in Seattle, a little less dense.

On the road this time, we crossed the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway where we enjoyed fond memories of time on the river, including the extraordinary Bobby’s Fish Camp which we visited twice.

Later in the day we crossed the Mighty Mississippi, though a segment we didn’t do on our boat as we’re further south now.

Finally, after passing through Alabama, Mississippi and a short stretch of Tennessee (where Graceland called us to visit, but we took a pass), we entered Arkansas.

We know from others who have been here: there are scenic places in Arkansas, but Interstate 40 territory doesn’t meet that definition. And like all states, it has some weird place names.

We ended our long day in Conway, Arkansas 35 miles west of Little Rock, and our motel was chosen by Bob in large part for its’ proximity to Starbucks across the street. He’s suffering from inadequate coffee he considers drinkable on this road trip so far. But we’re making good time and expect to arrive in Denver on schedule for a visit with our youngest daughter and about-to-be son-in-law.

End of a Chapter

Days on Cruise:    1

Miles traveled:   398

Travel Time:    5  hours, 45 mins

Total trip odometer:  398 statute miles

At 10am today after a couple hours of hauling the last things to the truck, cleaning the boat, and our last pump-out (there ARE silver linings to ending this trip!) we took one final photo of “Next to Me” and walked down the dock to the truck.

As we headed toward the freeway, Bob plugged in his iPod and began playing “our song”: Next To Me, by the Subdudes out of New Orleans.  While this resulted in a few tears for Cathryn, it also reminded us what’s important:  wherever we are, as long as we’re together, we’re “Home”!

We drove 2 hours north, going 70mph on the freeway segment, and after 100 miles we arrived in Titusville, FL.  Bob commented “Well, we just covered the same distance that took us two days last year while beginning the Loop.” Our travel scale has now reverted to “American Standard” rather then “Looper Standard ”, so 9 mph is no longer the norm.

In Titusville we drove to the marina where we stopped a year ago to tour the Kennedy Space Center, this time to connect with friends from home, Bob and Debi from Fox Island, WA . They recently began their Loop in Mobile, Alabama. We’re a bit jealous of them for the adventure they have yet ahead.

Since our truck is loaded to the max with a back seat full of clothes hanging on a rod, cooler full of food, suitcases for our stops in motels each night and more, Cathryn squeezed  into the backseat while Bob and Debi both sat in the passenger seat.  Luckily we didn’t pass any police cars while on our way to Dixie Crossroads restaurant where we had lunch and shared stories. It was great to see Bob and Debi again!

After a 3-hour lunch we got back on the road and drove 4 more hours to Tallahassee, FL where we’re now ensconced in the local Best Western, where we had leftovers from last night’s dinner, warmed in the microwave.

We plan one more Loop-related blog with some reflections on our trip.  It may take a bit longer to really absorb this thing we just finished. 

In the meantime we’ll continue to post about our journey home and resumption of life at home. We hope you’ll stay with us as we decide “what next”. We’re NOT done with experiencing adventures around the world until we’re no longer able. We’ve already made a reservation for a month-long stay in a tiny bungalow on the Rio Dulce in Guatemala for the month of February 2014.

Three Very Busy Days; One Final Sunset

Days on Cruise: 320

Distance traveled:  16.3 miles

Travel time:  1 hour, 42 minutes

Total trip odometer:  6,340

15 months ago we were conducting a Sea Trial here in Florida as part of our process to decide whether to buy Next To Me; Tuesday, two days ago, we were doing it again, this time to help Jack and Sara decide whether to buy her from us.  Almost unbelievably, the photo below was taken on the day WE were testing the boat to buy it in December 2011, and on that same day, Jack and Sara (our contingent boat buyers) were out on a training day with Captains Chris and Alyse Caldwell who took this photo! Who knew our lives would “collide” in such a wonderful way six months later, and now lead to their own Sea Trial and Survey of our boat?

The day of the Survey and Sea Trial, Tuesday, Tim the Engine Surveyor, Bill the Hull Surveyor, Curtis and Gill Stokes the boat broker handling the deal, Jack and Sara the Buyers, and Bob and Cathryn the Sellers all convened on Next To Me to spend a day testing and evaluating her so Jack and Sara can decide whether to buy her. It was a cool day, and lots of doors and windows were open as people came and went, crowded with 8 of us on the boat for 10 hours.

The Surveyors spent two hours checking things in the engine room, then we drove the boat to Crackerboy Boatyard nearby to pull her out of the water for an inspection of the hull, props, shafts and more. That took an hour.

Next up: the Sea Trial. This is where the two Surveyors tell us how to run the boat on the water so they can test its’ engine performance. We ran the boat at the usual 1200 rpms or about 9 mph; we ran the boat at 2200 rpms, “cruising speed” or about 18mph, the fastest we’ve ever gone; and then we ran the boat at Wide Open Throttle, 2800 rpms, by far the fastest we’ve ever run it in the 15 months we’ve owned her! And guess what? She hit 27.2 mph, this 30,000 pound thing, AND both surveyors, the boat broker, the buyers, and sellers were all smiles, as it was a smooth, comfortable ride. Wow!

The engine surveyor gave a hugely positive verbal report (to be followed with the results of the oil analysis and the formal final report) and left. The Hull Surveyor stayed a couple more hours continuing tests of the rest of the systems onboard. He left with a more cryptic verbal report with a promise of a list of “deficiencies” the next day and a final report by Friday. Long day! Happy, but tired, Buyers and Sellers to have this day behind us.

When we bought our boat, there were lots of things we struggled to figure out over the first 3 months, and we found this sometimes frustrating, so we offered to spend two days with Jack and Sara “showing them the ropes” on board Next To Me so they could avoid some of this frustration. That’s what we’ve been doing since the survey. Jack and Sara developed their own wish list of things to be explained, as did we, and the four of us started working through the lists. First up: Jack performed an oil change on the two Caterpillar engines and Westerbeke generator under Cathryn’s tutelage. That was 6 hours of work that saved $700 compared to hiring someone else to do the oil change every 150 engine hours.

One evening the four of us were invited to Chris and Alyse Caldwell’s boat down the dock for dessert, along with their two students on board for five days of training. We’ve all had great training at the feet of the Caldwell’s and enjoyed meeting their newest students.

The next day we continued orienting Jack and Sara on other components of Next To Me, but at 3:00 took a break to catch the lines of Jackets II, Stephen and Charlotte, coming into our marina where we met them, our first Looper friends, in January 2012, and today they were crossing their wake and closing their Loop! Stephen was grinning, Charlotte was crying, and we were all hugging in happiness and celebration.

Stephen and Charlotte below: the newest Gold Loopers! That night Jack and Sara returned to their hotel, understandably exhausted by the travel from Indiana followed by two very intense days on the boat, and we went out to dinner with Stephen and Charlotte following one last cocktail hour on their boat enjoying Charlotte’s fabulous, and somewhat famous, margaritas.

Today was the final day of Jack and Sara’s orientation on Next To Me, and it involved climbing up on the sundeck roof to deploy the dinghy, reviewing the use and settings of various systems on board (such as air conditioning/heat, toilets, combo washer/dryer), blogging and an actual pump-out of the black water holding tank, cheerfully performed by Jack under Bob’s direction.

At 4:30 the four of us settled on the Sundeck for a beer, and Jack and Sara High-Fived their absorption of a HUGE amount of information in short order, very successfully in our view.

Utterly astonishing, and overwhelmingly touching to us, Jack and Sara presented us with a gift to thank us for our friendship and willingness to spend time teaching them “the ropes” on Next To Me: a spectacular, gorgeous Weems and Plath gimbaled box clock.

An inscribed brass plate in the lid reads “The Great Loop Odyssey on Next To Me  2012-2013”. It’s so beautiful Cathryn was brought to tears and Bob had a genuine (rare) grin on his face.

So tonight the four of us went to “Chuck’s” for dinner, across the street from the marina, and sat at an outside table to eat fried shrimp and crabcakes, enjoy a beautiful sunset, and talk about topics other than The Boat, including our kids and upcoming plans for the remainder of 2013 for all of us.

We are SO grateful to have such friendly, smart, kind, generous people with whom to conduct the otherwise stressful business of selling a boat, and pleased that we have new friends, truly, as a result.

A Blogger’s Insecurities

Days on cruise:  317

Our blog first was created in late 2008 just after we completed a one-month trip to Africa with Bob’s sister Lynn and her husband David. That trip, we only posted a link to our Picasa web album after the trip was over, no words. Since then, as we traveled every winter for 3 years to Mexico, then began our Loop journey 15 months ago, it expanded to include lots of stories of our activities, experiences and thoughts on whatever we were doing. Like most bloggers, we wished for more “comments” so we’d know what readers thought, even though the primary purpose of the blog was to keep a journal for us, and keep our immediate family and close friends informed about our well-being.

Over the 4 years of active blogging, our readership has grown, presumably because our topics have become more varied from RV-ing in Mexico to Looping on a trawler. We have a “site meter” attached to the blog which sends us reports each month offering lots of data about our readership.

As the screen shot below show, our readers numbered 118 the day we completed our Loop,  the next day 45 had viewed it by the time the report was generated.

 

That was a not uncommon range this past year, though it grew over the course of the year, except during the six weeks in November and January when we went home for the holidays.

It’s astonishing to us how much data this site meter offers, including what countries and cities readers hail from, or at least where their ISP is located.

We’ve enjoyed writing blog posts and adding photos to commemorate our travels. For our Christmas gift, daughter Mackenzie gave us an IOU for a bound, published version of our Loop blog, and we expect to enjoy re-reading it in its’ entirety when we’re in our 90s, no longer adventuring, and can’t recall any of the details without such a tool to remind us. Meanwhile, it might become our primary coffee table book. Thanks for reading along!

Comments And Congratulations

Days on cruise:  317

In addition to being met at the dock as we crossed our wake by Captains Chris and Alyse Caldwell, and Jerry and Janet from “Wind Song” to help us celebrate, it was great fun to receive dozens of emails, text messages, and blog comments from relatives, friends and blog readers. Samples include:

Many of these were from people we know and love, and just as many were from people we’ve never met who followed our journey on the blog. Repeatedly we heard that one of the reasons those folks liked to follow our blog was because we posted most days, not just occasionally. It was great fun to learn through comments and emails who some of those folks were, and why they were reading. We’re sorry we aren’t able to include here any of the text messages received on our cell.

To all: thank you for sharing our journey and enhancing it for us with your comments, questions and even emails telling us who you are and why you followed our story. For those of you who are future Loopers, we’d love to have you send us a link to your blog so we can follow your journey too.

Happy adventures to all!