RANDOM RUMINATIONS……..after the loop

~ karamia

It’s the journey, not the destination……

As we have journaled, logged and blogged everyday for a year, it’s hard to accept an ending.  When interesting things happen now that we are home, we feel the urge to run write it down or to snap a photo.  But they say all good things must come to an end.  We end our blog with several thoughts or quotes that we never found the right place to fit into our journal of our trip.  We add these for ourselves to remember mostly, but hope you enjoy as well.

  • 20 states, 2 countries, 7,134 miles, 115 locks, hundreds of new friends.
  • Not every day on the Loop is beautiful and not every day is easy, but without a doubt every day is interesting and adventurous and challenging.
  • The not knowing what you will encounter each day is both a curse and a blessing.  At the end of each day, when you secure your lines, you feel more alive than before.
  • “I love not always knowing where we are headed yet not being lost.”        Oar Knot
  • Not an uncommon question we were asked almost daily, “Can you get that boat here from Nashville?”  We have been asked that question since Mobile, Alabama last November – and yet they were still asking up in New York this year.  Our response was always the same, “You Bet!”
  • We collected over 300 boat cards from people we have met along the way.  While it’s wonderful to be home with our family and friends, we can’t help but think of all the new friends we met on this special journey.
  • Men in Canada don’t wear shirts – random! (Don’t ask).
  •  Mark Twain Quote…..“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired  by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime”.
  • Three most asked questions:
    • What was the best part about the trip?  There were so many unique experiences we can’t pick just one.
    • What was the worst part about the trip?  Several of these as well.
    • What was the scariest part of the trip?  Although we never feared for our lives, there were a number of anxious moments.

We don’t have enough time or space to answer these, please see our blog!

  • We now more than ever appreciate what the name of our boat means – it was our home……”Cara Mia” is Italian for “My Beloved”, the song is a ballad about “never wanting to leave her”……(Jay and the Americans).  We changed the “C” to “K” – our Kara Mia also stands for our initials,  “Karen And Ron Atkisson”!

“Cara Mia why, must we say goodbye?  Each time we part my heart wants to die.  Darling hear my prayer, Cara Mia fair, I’ll be your love till the end of time.”

  • And we will end with a favorite quote –  As “Maxine” says:

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOO HOO, what a ride!”