My book, Heidi Across America – One Woman’s Journey on a Bicycle through the Heartland, publishes at the end of April, and I’m headed out on a slow travel bike-book tour to launch it. For this tour, I look forward to spending half of 2024 making my way across the U.S. talking to people about what they love about where they live and slow traveling through new landscapes.

But before I do that, there’s now. I’ve been wanting to write and publish a book for most of my life, and the accomplishment deserves multiple celebrations. Slow travel asks the traveler to pay attention to the moment and, often, experience the journey as the destination. With this in mind, I made a pre-publication visit to Oregon to see family and friends.

Train

While on the train, I looked out at the scenery and worked on an essay. I approach train travel as a mini writing retreat. The cellular signal is not great, making it an ideal time to put the phone aside and do something that doesn’t require internet research (or anything else I might do to distract myself from writing).

1. Two hour layover in Seattle made a perfect opportunity to meet a friend for lunch

2. Corvallis has a lovely and walkable downtown where I walked along the river with one friend and met the other at a pub

3. Much walking, a little running, and several bus rides made friend dates possible

Cat trail

I spent some time with my parents at their farmhouse in Corvallis and tended to some outside tasks, including caring for one tree with a broken limb. One of the things I love about being on the land is the feeling of my body working – push and pull, squat and stand, lift and lower, bend and straighten – and the experience of connecting with the environment. Doing this kind of work is one way I like to celebrate.

After pruning the broken limb, I cut it into pieces that I could drag to the burn pile. Back and forth I went, supervised by one of the four cats that live with my parents. On my last trip back from the burn pile, I noticed a trail about six inches wide in the wet grass that arced between the back and front of the house. The cats had made a trail!

A change purse

Based on previous experience riding the bus in Portland, I knew I needed exact change for my fare. Here and there, I’d been making cash purchases to have small bills and coins for anticipated bus rides. I hadn’t been carrying coins because I didn’t have anywhere to keep them (the zipper was broken on the coin compartment of my wallet) or much need. Who pays with cash anymore?

I travel with art supplies and always a roll of artist masking tape. The tape is practical – far more useful than coins. Sometimes the art I make is practical, but almost always it’s pleasurable. I LOVE the process of making something, and that delight is why I make art. The experience is similar to what I find working my body outdoors and what I notice in the process, like the cat trail and globs of water beaded on the lupine leaves. But the joy I derive from making art is something I only feel from being creative. Having basic art supplies, especially tape, on hand, makes it easier for me to feed my creative whims when an opportunity arrives.

Just such a moment presented itself as I prepared for a day out and about. I expected I’d ride the bus that day and did not want to lose coins or dig for them. Before my first meeting of the day, an early Zoom call with Cami Ostman who is helping keep me on track with my book launch preparations, I played with a paper chocolate bar wrapper I rescued from my recycling collection. After some folding, a tiny bit of scissor work, and artful taping, I had a change purse! Art making as celebration.

Once my call was done, I skipped (fast walked, hopscotched) to a French bakery and café two blocks from the guesthouse for conversation and a book swap with author David Oates. His partner, artist Horatio Law, had an art show opening at Clackamas Community College the night before. I love how Horatio’s photos embody the principles of slow travel – he notices instances of striking beauty when he’s out and about, often reflections.

I took a writing workshop with David in September 2013, and the first two short essays I wrote were published in VoiceCatcher Journal and High Desert Journal respectively, and both appear in my book.

Author Joe Wilkins, who will be my conversation partner at Powell’s Books on Sunday, May 19th, was the nonfiction editor at High Desert Journal who selected “Blood” for publication.

When people ask when I started writing my book, I often reference this time and these essays. I sometimes say the bicycle ride itself is when I started writing Heidi Across America because I blogged almost daily and had two thirds of the posts for reference when I started drafting the book in earnest in December 2017.

I walked four-miles north for my next two rendezvouses. I overestimated my travel time so I wouldn’t have to rush.

Slow travel encourages diversions. I had a little extra time and popped into a garden store. To my delight, I found a tiny ceramic plate illustrated with a bumblebee (actual size) and bought it as a gift to celebrate the arrival of my galleys.

After my friend meet ups, night had settled on the city. I headed toward the guesthouse where I was staying while searching the Trimet trip planner for a direct bus. (Yes, I was doing a little distracted walking in a neighborhood that was tucked in for the evening.)

When the bus arrived, I fed two dollars into the fare machine then opened my new change purse! and deposited eighty cents into the change eater.

A change purse is not necessary (a note on Trimet fares). Having exhausted my change supply in one go, I discovered that I could pay with a chip card on the bus and dispense with worrying over exact change. The card reader recognizes the card every time you tap it, like it does with a transit fare card or phone (I don’t have my phone set up to do what would have made this an easy option).

Back at home

My days whir with writing, social media, book tour tasks (asking for money, media, reserving space for gatherings, collaborators, and more), coaching sessions, podcasts, trip planning, writing, reading. I sleep, but my brain often wakes my body before the alarm, smacking ideas and to-dos like a wad of bubble gum.

The change purse now holds post office box keys and quarters. I finished a winter-inspired collage postcard. The board I serve on recognized the service and positivity of one of the members whose term completed, and I was encouraged to make a Chair of Positivity as part of that recognition. I didn’t think I’d have time to make something, but I did.

I slow travel to a few fitness classes each week and sometimes remember to make time to wander on the trail and look for moss. I slow down to appreciate moss (and sometimes lichen) – the shapes of its leaves, who it’s hanging out with, the details of its sporangia if any are present, its color.

I pedal when I can with no destination other than the ride itself. On one of these rides, I passed a winter wren dead on the road and came back to it for a photo. It was the size of a shrew with wings. Tiny. Beautiful. A reminder that life is transitory and to appreciate the present moment because it’s all any of us has.

Share your slow travel stories, learn from others, and find inspiration by joining The Wonder of Slow Travel conversation on Facebook.

If you’d like to support my slow travel work, consider donating in support of Heidi Across America 2024.

And if you don’t yet have your copy, find links to purchase Heidi Across America - One Woman’s Journey on a Bicycle through the Heartland here or wherever books are sold.

Whatever the weather and no matter the scale of your journey, I invite you outside on a slow travel adventure. I’d love to hear what you discover (in the comments below, at The Wonder of Slow Travel, or via email). Thank you for being part of this ride of life!

LOVE