Kimmswick MO

 We are tied up at the legendary Hoppies “marina” which is actually a huge barge with an office built on part of it.  It is absolutely part of the looper rite of passage to stop here and it didn’t disappoint…. It was started in 1934 and originally there were 3 barges. The Hopkins couple started it and lived just up the hill from here.  Now there so and his wife are in their mid-eighties and have managed it for 50 years! Fern has had a stroke which left her wheelchair bound and Hoppie himself is not in good health either - however they still answer the phone when you call for a reservation and Hoppie sits out on his screened in porch and doesn’t miss a thing. Their daughter, Deb, pretty much runs things with her husband now and she gave a “river talk” tonight at docktails, giving us advice and hints about anchoring out the next 3 nights.  Side note - I think I might throw up….  Scary stuff, but Tom says we’ll just take one night at a time.  Sand bars, debris, shallow water, wing dams, rocks and trees lurking beneath the water surface - I could go on… 😳

We went through 2 locks today and didn’t really have to wait more than an hour for either one, so we arrived here at 1:30.  The other “must do” is eat at the Blue Owl in town and have some homemade pie, and they close every day at 3:00 pm, so we made it by the skin of our teeth! It is a 15 minute walk into town and I have to say that the town itself it darling and has cute little shops lining the streets. And the bonus was that the food was wonderful as well as the pie.

Hoppies is only the one barge now because several sunk with floods over the last few years. We even have electricity!  I’m trying to enjoy tonight because I am not looking forward to the next 3 nights anchoring. If I am able, I will update daily with pics!





Forgot to tell you that we passed by St. Louis and the famous arch today!




Comments

Jennifer Holsen said…
Cool, you are passed St.Louis. I don’t think i will over go over that bridge going to snd from VB without thinking of the two you motoring down there. Be safe!!!
October 6, 2021 at 3:14 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It Is Finished

Image
 And just like that our boating adventure of the past 2 years is over. We got up early to strip the bed and pack the last few items and made one last trip to the storage unit. We did one last inspection of all the nooks and crannies (with a flashlight) and actually found a small bag of acrylic glassware that had fallen down into a lower shelf unit, so we rescued that.  After loading the car to the gills, we took a couple of last pictures and walked away. I am sad on one hand because I loved our looping adventure on Orion, but by the time we left the boat it didn’t feel like “home” any more. We did something few people ever accomplish and I’m proud of that, and we always said we would know when it was time to move on, and it was. We drove to Baltimore with a stop at the Quantico Marine Museum that Tom has always wanted to see. Wow, what a great place! Reminded me of a Smithsonian. We spent over 2 hours there, ate lunch in their pub and drove the last 2 hours to Baltimore. Nothing beats
Read more

So close...

Image
 Today was one of those days we have been waiting for - warm, sunny, no fog, minimal crab pots and no "incidents".  We left Deltaville around 10 am after waiting till the fog dissipated  and traveled to Hampton VA without a hitch.  We even had our first 2 dolphins ride alongside the boat!  That was awesome!!  As you can see below, it was warm enough to go have a cocktail on the fly bridge and Dewey had his first little field trip outside on the boat too. We are nearly at our intended destination of the Norfolk area where we will have the boat hauled out of the water, the bottom painted and a couple of odds and ends attended to. We are looking forward to meeting our newest grand child, arriving next week and spending the holidays with family.  When we come back to the boat, it will be 2021 and we start the Great Loop adventure in earnest!  Stay tuned...
Read more

So. Many. Bins.

 It was day one of moving off the boat and we loaded so many bins! It’s not just packing, because as with all of our “moves” not everything goes to one destination. We like to keep it complicated! LOL! We have used color coded tape to mark which boxes are boat only, RV if that is what we do next, needs to end up in Hudson, but not this trip, and finally - things that must go with us now to Baltimore and ultimately Hudson. Sigh… We accessed our storage unit early this morning and made 4 trips with a fully loaded vehicle each time. Lots of empty drawers and closets now so we made really good progress today. Tomorrow Tom has a couple of boat tweaks to do while I finish packing and we should be completely done by tomorrow night. We will sleep one last night and pack up the last bedding and towels before leaving on Monday. We haven’t stopped meeting new boater friends - met the guy on the boat behind ours and found out he just bought the boat. He is an older guy alone, sold his house and is
Read more