About the Authors


Hiking the ruins of Machu Picchu


Snorkeling in the Galapagos Islands

We met at Grinnell College in 1966 when I was a sophomore and Susan a freshman. Two years later we married on August 10, 1968. From the beginning we enjoyed a sense of adventure toward travel and foods, which we satisfied as best we could while raising a family and working. In 1999, I sold my business and we faced the decision of continuing to work or doing other things. We chose to spend our time having adventures.

Since retiring we have traveled to Italy, Scotland, Portugal, Turkey, Greece, Croatia, Albania, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Australia, Figi, New Zealand and most of the islands in the Caribbean. We have also traveled extensively in the United States. We made four border-to-border, coast-to-coast road trips, where we avoided interstates and fast food as much as possible and limited ourselves to no more than 250 miles per day. That forced us to go slowly, eat locally and travel the back roads. We have a few tales to tell about those trips.

In 2003 we began living aboard our 35-foot trawler Gulf Cart for the summers. We found seeing the country from the water, not having a car, and meeting the fascinating people who live on their boats to be enchanting. We wrote frequent emails to family and a few friends describing what we were experiencing and sharing some photographs. We learned our friends were forwarding the emails to their friends and our list of addressees grew. When we began the Great Loop it was these people who encouraged us to write Coming Full Circle: A Voyage on America's Great Loop.

We sold Gulf Cart in the spring of 2009. We had other travel ideas and didn't want our boat to sit idle in a slip while we pursued those dreams. We live in a home on Naples Bay and boat the local waters in a 25-foot World Cat, Gulf Cart Too. We serve as AGLCA Harbor Hosts for Naples and would love to meet you if you come our way.