I'm going to have Dawn write her own bio post soon, and I'll do the same for myself, but first I want to write an introductory post for us as a "cruising couple."
Dawn and I are both from rural Minnesota, and we met while in college (I was at UND in Grand Forks at the time, she at St Cloud State University). After I graduated with a degree in aviation, I headed out to Southern California to work as a flight instructor, and Dawn followed me as teaching opportunities were pretty limited in MN at the time. Oh, and she apparently liked me, because we were married in California a little over a year later! In 2004 we moved to Portland, Oregon for three years, and then back to Minnesota where we've been living and working since 2007. I'm now a Boeing 757/767 pilot for Delta Air Lines, while Dawn is a math teacher at Minnetonka Middle School West near our current home. I'll write more about our cruising plans in another post, but I plan to scale back my flying during the cruising season, while Dawn will be taking at least a 3-year break from teaching.
Since I started working for the airlines in 2004, Dawn and I have done quite a bit of traveling around the country and around the world; at last count we've been to 36 countries or so. Flying small planes is another shared hobby, we have a share of a 1940 Piper J-3 Cub and are sole owners of a 1953 Piper Pacer (which we're currently selling in preparation for cruising). We've used the latter plane to fly all over the U.S., the Bahamas, and down Mexico's Baja peninsula. We both ride motorcycles and have done some pretty neat rides including to Alaska and back. As you may have guessed, Dawn and I don't have any children, but we do have an adorable 18-month-old Lab/German Shorthair/Beagle/Demondog mix named Piper. He'll be coming on the boat with us.
I learned to sail at Boy Scout camp as a kid, and have sailed dinghies and small boats off and on since. When Dawn and I lived in LA, we used to rent Catalina 22s out of Marina del Rey and San Diego Harbor, and later her parents bought a MacGregor 25 and we sailed that on Lake Traverse (MN/SD) when visiting. A few years back my brother and I bought a swing-keel Santana 22 and trailer-sailed that on Lake Minnetonka for several seasons (I sold it last spring when my brother moved overseas). Since 2012 we've done more "big" boat sailing, including quite a few bareboat charters on boats ranging from 37' Beneteaus to 46' Leopard cats in California, the Bahamas, the BVI, St. Maarten, and Thailand.
We've talked about buying a boat and going cruising for quite a while, but decided to take the leap just last August. Since then we've made some pretty huge progress towards our goal, but still have a daunting amount left to do. I'll talk about that in another post soon.
Dawn and I are both from rural Minnesota, and we met while in college (I was at UND in Grand Forks at the time, she at St Cloud State University). After I graduated with a degree in aviation, I headed out to Southern California to work as a flight instructor, and Dawn followed me as teaching opportunities were pretty limited in MN at the time. Oh, and she apparently liked me, because we were married in California a little over a year later! In 2004 we moved to Portland, Oregon for three years, and then back to Minnesota where we've been living and working since 2007. I'm now a Boeing 757/767 pilot for Delta Air Lines, while Dawn is a math teacher at Minnetonka Middle School West near our current home. I'll write more about our cruising plans in another post, but I plan to scale back my flying during the cruising season, while Dawn will be taking at least a 3-year break from teaching.
Since I started working for the airlines in 2004, Dawn and I have done quite a bit of traveling around the country and around the world; at last count we've been to 36 countries or so. Flying small planes is another shared hobby, we have a share of a 1940 Piper J-3 Cub and are sole owners of a 1953 Piper Pacer (which we're currently selling in preparation for cruising). We've used the latter plane to fly all over the U.S., the Bahamas, and down Mexico's Baja peninsula. We both ride motorcycles and have done some pretty neat rides including to Alaska and back. As you may have guessed, Dawn and I don't have any children, but we do have an adorable 18-month-old Lab/German Shorthair/Beagle/Demondog mix named Piper. He'll be coming on the boat with us.
I learned to sail at Boy Scout camp as a kid, and have sailed dinghies and small boats off and on since. When Dawn and I lived in LA, we used to rent Catalina 22s out of Marina del Rey and San Diego Harbor, and later her parents bought a MacGregor 25 and we sailed that on Lake Traverse (MN/SD) when visiting. A few years back my brother and I bought a swing-keel Santana 22 and trailer-sailed that on Lake Minnetonka for several seasons (I sold it last spring when my brother moved overseas). Since 2012 we've done more "big" boat sailing, including quite a few bareboat charters on boats ranging from 37' Beneteaus to 46' Leopard cats in California, the Bahamas, the BVI, St. Maarten, and Thailand.
We've talked about buying a boat and going cruising for quite a while, but decided to take the leap just last August. Since then we've made some pretty huge progress towards our goal, but still have a daunting amount left to do. I'll talk about that in another post soon.
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