Picking a good year to be gone

Pioneer Press Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:39:58 -0700
Staying in the Loop

"There is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.... "The Great Loop." What, she asked, was that? Turns out it was a yearlong boat trip on the continuous waterway that encircles the eastern portion of North America - inland rivers, the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Seaboard and the Great Lakes. Janacek thought he and his wife, Sally Colwell, could make the journey after their two sons, David and Adam Janacek, were grown and the couple had retired. Colwell had a better idea. "We should do this, but we shouldn't wait until the kids are grown," she told him. "We should do it while the kids are still young enough to go with us." So the Maplewood family bought a 36-foot trawler and spent 54 weeks in 2006 and 2007 cruising the loop, covering 8,749 miles. They returned to Minnesota Aug. 18. ... [the 8th grader] said living on a small boat also taught him how to live without many material objects. "You really don't need that much stuff - just really the bare essentials," he said. "

[[keywords: Living;Maplewood;]]