Great Loop Escape

Lock up the house. Buy a boat 2,000 miles away. Travel America’s Great Loop.What could go wrong?When the pandemic closed the world, Glen and Julie went looking for a way out. With ocean crossings already behind them, they traded their mountain home for Stardust, a boat waiting 2,000 miles away, and set off on America’s Great Loop-a 6,000-mile ribbon of rivers, canals, lakes, and Intracoastal Waterway winding through the eastern United States like a secret the country had been keeping.Come aboard as they wrestle churning currents inside locks where one wrong move means fiberglass meets concrete. Travel with them from the sparkling waters of the Florida Keys into the murky Dismal Swamp, up the Hudson River, and through the Erie Canal. Watch the Great Lakes turn from glass to gale in the space of an hour, then follow Stardust south from Chicago into the powerful currents, enormous locks, and intimidating barge traffic of America’s inland rivers.Along the way, mechanical failures refuse to wait for convenient harbors, carefully made plans unravel, and the closed Canadian border forces a decision that changes everything.Through it all, strangers become friends, small towns become favorites, and a couple with eight years at sea behind them discovers just how much there is still to learn.The Loop promised an escape. What it delivered was far more than they ever imagined.