New Friends and Looper Culture

We are discovering the "Looper" culture bit by bit.  First, we learned that our BoatUS card or the mention that we are Loopers gets us discounts.  Second, we discovered that other Loopers are friendly and helpful.  And while all of this mechanical/electrical stuff was going on, we discovered that there are fellow Loopers who are designated "harbor hosts." 

Patty and Robert Mitchell are the harbor hosts at Alton Marina.  Diana met Patty on Wednesday.  Later in the day she and her dog Maggie visited us.  Kodi and Maggie also became fast friends.

They own a beautiful 48 Tollycraft named Orinoco (more on the name later) which shows a hailing port of Absarokee MONTANA. 

Orinoco, a 48 Tollycraft

They have done the loop several times.  Patty is a retired United Airlines captain and Robert is a retired engineer who still does contract work for his former employers.  They are planning to live aboard this winter at the Alton Marina while Robert completes his current assignment.  Without going into details, they bought the boat in Florida, completed the loop and trucked it back to Peuget Sound on the west coast and then trucked back to the Mississippi (at his employer's expense).  So here it sits.

Last night, they invited us to dinner at Tony's in Alton's historic downtown.  We had a lovely dinner and a great discussion.  Facinating people.  While we will clearly miss our many Chicago friends, we anticipate that we will have great fun meeting facinating people who, like us, are out on this great adventure called the Great Loop.

Oh the name, Orinoco.  Boats have names.  Some are funny, like Nauti-girl, some are named after a person, Murray Wolf, some, like Guided Discovery, as they have, in our case, have symbolic signifigance and others, like "Orinoco" are a mystery unless you know the story.  It turns out that the Orinoco is the second largest river in Venezuala where Robert was born and where he first went boating with his father.