Cloud Clippers: the high-flying life of Marie Rae Miller Hubert.

This is the story of a woman's daring and remarkable life. Marie Rae Miller Hubert was a teacher, meteorologist, artist, writer, poet, private and commercial pilot, and completely unique mother. Flying was her passion. She earned her private pilot?s license in 1945 at age twenty-four, then marched into a bank and requested a loan to buy her first plane, a Piper J3 Super Cub. She earned her commercial license at twenty-seven, taught aviation at a military school in 1945, set a Piper Cub altitude record in Oregon in 1950, and helped shape generations of students as a high school teacher. At age twenty-eight, Marie married a Navy veteran, Frederick Emil Hubert, twenty-six years her senior. Together they flew several cross-countries, most of them fraught with storms and close calls. They eventually settled in Florida, where, at ages forty and sixty-six, unexpected news arrived: they were going to have a baby. Karen eventually became her mother's co-pilot and travel partner, and their numerous adventures together created an unbreakable bond. In total, Marie owned three airplanes, each of them dubbed Cloud Clipper, in which she completed twelve circumnavigations of the United States. As a child, Karen flew with her mom on four cross-countries in a 1958 Forney Aircoupe. Remarkably, it?s still flying and cherished by an eighty-four-year-old man in Oregon. Marie continued her journeys by car, RV, cruise ship, and airline long after she sold her final plane; well into her eighties, often accompanied by her Siberian husky. Drive alone to Alaska for two months at age seventy-nine? Check. Marie explored every state in the U.S. by small plane, car or RV; and visited Mexico, Canada, a myriad of Caribbean islands, and most of Europe. She sailed on seven cruises, around the Caribbean, to Canada, and to Mexico. Impressively, she journeyed to forty-eight out of our sixty-three National Parks.