THURSDAY OCTOBER 29TH

The journey continues!

After many days attending the Fall Rendezvous of Loopers, Ross and I left Joe Wheeler State Park early this morning. We backtracked on the Tennessee, making our way to the Tombigbee Waterway, which will eventually bring us to the Gulf of Mexico. The Rendezvous is a gathering of folks who have completed the Loop, are in the process of it, or are interested in doing it. Each day is filled with informational sessions on the next section of waterways we will be traveling. Speakers review the charts, marinas, anchorages and local knowledge. Between the sessions and visiting with other Loopers we gained loads of information. There are also sessions on everything from bottom paint (snore) to medical emergencies at sea and how to prepare for them. I have to say that all this info makes the trip seem a bit overwhelming and by last night I think I probably had a little of the deer in the headlights look about me. We left the marina this morning a little before 7 with many other boats continuing on the Loop. It started to rain and continued a good part of the day. The sun peaked out a bit in late afternoon, which was a treat because it showed off the gorgeous colors of the trees. There are many different varieties of oak trees down here and they are just beginning to turn.

Hopefully we have found and fixed all the problems the gremlins caused while we were at home those three weeks. Minor problems of replacing switches, but of course they were switches located in the most inaccessible of places. I never realized Ross was a contortionist! The most critical problem we discovered was the water reservoir for the coffee maker had a slight crack in it. Making it unusable to use with the automatic brew feature. Totally unacceptable in Nancyworld. Of course the model is so old that you can’t purchase replacement parts. Lucky for me we had a rental car, or I would have had to walk to the nearest town selling coffee makers. And those of you who know me, know I would have walked to town.