Great Loop Blog

Dave & Joyce's Great Loop Adventure
.... and other Bucket List trips!

Welcome to Dave and Joyce’s blog. This blog was initially created to capture our Great Loop adventure. However, it has now transformed into our “Bucket List adventures” blog. Many people followed our Great Loop blog and have told us how much they enjoyed it. That somewhat surprised us … and totally pleased us. So we decided to continue the blog with post Great Loop trips … i.e. “Bucket List”. We hope you enjoy our new adventures!

A note about navigating the blog: Since the beginning, the blog was an active journal, updated daily whenever Internet service was available. The latest information is always posted at the top of the blog page to make it easier for viewers to see our daily/weekly progress. However, when viewing it later, the format is a little awkward. For example, to see the pre- Great Loop blog, scroll down to the archive section and click on the last link July 2010 . After the page is displayed scroll down to the bottom and begin viewing by scrolling back to the top. This will give you a better sense of the trip since it is the true time sequence of our travels … we hope this makes sense … Enjoy!

Cell: 317-403-0128
Email: davejoyceajohnson@gmail.com

01-30-2014

Dave went fishing a couple of times since he caught the "big" bass, but only caught one keeper (17" bass). He went to the cleaning station where two guys were cleaning a lot of 12 - 14" crappies ... real nice batch of fish. They felt sorry for Dave and gave him 4 fillets ... hey, we accept charity when it comes to fresh fish ... looking forward to more fish dinners!

Today we went to dinner at Cody's with high school chums living in the area. Left of Dave, trying to hide from the camera, is John Flaherty who is also a grade school friend of Dave's. Across from Dave and next to Joyce is Nancy (Newman) Balde another Scecina high school friend. Sitting in the back of the booth is Judy, John's wife, and Ron, Nancy's husband. A lot of classmate update chatter was oh so boring for Ron and Judy, but lots of fun for the Crusader alumni. It was a nice mini-reunion with plans to do it again ... with a 1959 year book aid to jog our memories:-)

01-20-2014

A nice evening to grill out. Dave cooking chicken on the grill while enjoying the pretty sunset ... not a Marathon sunset, but nice just the same:-) It is a little cooler than normal down here, but we are not complaining ... stay warm, where ever you are!

01-17-2014

Dave broke in his portable boat and went fishing. The first day he caught one bass ... only 14 inches. The second day he caught a whooper; 21 inch, 4+lbs. bass. Hey Steve, eat your heart out:-) Now he needs to figure out how to catch more than one a day. Everyone says the cold fronts are messing up fishing ... hey, if this is considered slow, putting fish in the freezer should be a piece of cake!

01-13-2014

Left this morning for our "RV home" and stopped in Everglades National Park. We took a walk and came to a channel full of alligators. I tried to get Joyce to move closer to one of them (above) but she refused ... chicken ... nope smart! Upper right Dave isn't afraid to get close to the bird in background ... brave guy! Lower right a really big gator swam to shore ... we gave him plenty of room ... he was the biggest one we ever saw.

01-10-2014

Nice day today so we spent the morning around the pool. In the afternoon after shopping (food and booze ... what else is there?) we went to Banana Bay to see our friends. Above George and Pat. We interrupted them as they work on their second book. Upper right, George and Nancy. They just arrived and were busy washing down their boat. Lower right, Sharon and Eli. Steve was down in the engine room, not enjoying the sun. Going to dinner tonight with Pat, George, Larry and Jackie Reitz ... celebrating Joyce and Pat's birthdays ... yep, she is once again a year older than Dave.

01-08-2014

Steve and Linda had us over for dinner aboard "Yesterday's Dream". We had them over to the condo for salmon ... but they really went over board (no pun intended) on what they served us.

Huge, live lobster (well actually Steve did cook them) ... what a treat! We haven't eaten that much lobster in years ... hey lobster lovers ... eat your heart out:-)

01-06-2014

Last night we visited Daryl and Janet Branneman on Duck Key. After cocktails we went to the Hideway cafe and, once again, we were not disappointed. The food was outstanding ... and so was the company:-) Happy Birthday Janet ... no one is mentioning her age ... aw come on ... thats not fair.

01-05-2014

Hosts Bonnie (front, left of bar - birthday girl!) and Larry. Larry smoked enough meat to feed an army ... and oh so good!

Sharon (the prankster!) with husband Steve ... save some of the orange juice Dad Jerry sent you ... great stuff but could use a little Vodka.

Joyce and Pat helping the guys solve all the worlds problems.

Joyce, Betty and Sue ... a happy trio!

Donnie and Karen ... hey bud, where is your guitar? Donnie can play and sing. They have an interesting year ahead of them. Going to spent a year in Beijing where Karen will be teaching.

Skip and Karen ... more of our Hoosier friends. Somehow I missed Admiral Pat's George and Steve and Linda Franko ... not to worry, more pictures to follow. Need to get Admiral Betty and Sue's captains in here also ... photographer was having too much fun to get a picture headcount:-)

01-04-2014

We arrived at our campsite December 30, 2013 and left for a 10 day stay in Marathon to visit all our boating friends. Yesterday we visited Pat and George with their friends/neighbors Judy and Lou. Tonight we are off to the yacht club for dinner and a farewell to Judy and Lou who are going back to New Jersey ... burrrrrr!

This morning we went to breakfast with Steve and Linda (aboard Yesterday's Dream) and will be seeing them again later this week ... hopefully we will get a weather break so Dave and Steve can go fishing.

Joyce having coffee this morning on our condo patio ... pool and Gulf in background ... what a view! Raining today but warm. More pictures coming when the sun returns.