Charleston - April 21

This morning Darrell and Bob repaired the aft railing and Margaret and Beth walked to the open-air market. Several years ago Margaret had purchased a sweetgrass basket and had it with her on the boat. It was getting a little battered and Margaret wanted to replace it. She found that the price of the baskets had skyrocketed but was able to find a woman who would repair her basket. The woman didn’t charge for the repair and really needed to be cajoled into accepting something for her time and talent.

The Loopers Rendezvous started this afternoon with registration at 2:00. The number of people attending this year is down considerably and we wonder if it has anything to do with the price of fuel. The increases in prices certainly take a toll on any budgeting that has been done.

Today was the meet and greet part, with registration, reception and dinner. The Loopers who are currently doing the loop introduced themselves, the Loopers who have completed the loop were honored and the rest were those who anticipate doing the loop.

Beth discovered that she apparently has an accent. Three times during the course of today she was asked if she was from Canada. When she said no, she was then asked if she was from Minnesota! She can’t figure out how they could tell.

Our speaker tonight talked about the history of Charleston. He was a very good speaker and it was a very informative talk.

The bus taking us back to our marina dropped several people off at another marina first. Those boaters had been talking about going to a store near to their marina to get some ice cream after they got off the bus. On the way to our marina, several people on our bus started talking about ice cream and how good that would taste. The next thing we know, the bus driver is pulling into a Baskin Robbins! Almost everyone enjoyed an ice cream cone. We think that speaks to the southern ‘hospitality’ that seems to be prevalent down here.