Judie Braaten:  

Truth be told, I've led a rather boring life. After high school, I worked for the courts in Oregon for twelve years. During that time, I got married and divorced, and raised Morgan horses...until my stallion died. That broke my heart. So, in 2000, I packed up and moved to the San Francisco Bay area where I worked for the Judicial Council of California for four years. I got into sailing and joined a yacht club. Okay, so it was more of a drinking club with a boating problem, but I digress....By 2004, I held the positions of Publicity Chair and Rear Commodore (yep, the fools gave me the key to the liquor locker!) While in California, I met a man who owned a couple of small airplanes. One day we were comparing and contrasting sailing and flying. That evening, he called me up and invited me flying. We flew out of Oakland as the sun was beginning to set. After clearing the Bay Bridge, he told me to take the controls. It was an unforgettable experience as I piloted the plane over the Golden Gate Bridge and banked it toward Half Moon Bay, where we landed and had dinner before flying back. Now if you're a pilot, you're thinking, "big deal!" but to me, it was. In 2003, I was dating an officer in the Coast Guard who was transferred to Hawaii. Since he lived on his boat, three of us signed on to help him sail his 36' sailboat from San Francisco to Hawaii. It was a three-wee...Expand for more