Kathleen O’Donnell grew up in a small town Central California but moved to Cody, Wyoming, to raise her two sons in the wide open spaces.  Her sons Tim and Mike remember life in Wyoming as “Mom’s never happier than when she’s hitting the road to go see someplace new with a couple of kids and a dog in the car.”

After the boys were grown, empty-nest syndrome exacerbated her life-long wanderlust and fascination with other cultures and, as she puts it, she “wandered through a couple of continents and several countries.”  Along the way she earned a degree in comparative religion and acquired a reputation as a fair but tough manager.