I was raised in the small town of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and graduated from the University of Idaho. In my senior year, I married Chuck Hanner and together we decided the best thing to do after graduation was to join the Peace Corps--and off we went to Afghanistan. Those adventures became my book "Letters from Afghanistan" written from diaries and letters some thirty years later. We did another overseas jaunt in Kuwait then settled down and were responsible adults for almost twenty years--holding jobs as stockbrokers in San Diego. But, sooner or later your true self comes out, so we quit in our late forties and rode bicycles across the United States. That became my first book, "The First Big Ride--A Woman's Journey." After that, at loose ends once again, we rejoined the Peace Corps, but this time went to South America. Major culture shock! Not only was it a far cry from our cushy existence in San Diego, but it didn't have any connection to our time in the Corps thirty years before. I wrote it all up--the good and the bad, in my latest book, "Posted in Paraguay."
Chuck and I now live in Sarasota, Florida, where we continue to be avid cyclists, tennis players and do a lot of traveling.