Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:20:23
Heidi Beierle
I had such a wonderful experience at Cooky’s. I mean, the pie was. The pie was good, but there were these logbooks that the cyclists who had passed through cookies signed, and there were years and years and years of logbooks. And I was like, wow, this is like a jackpot of bicycle tourism information. And I was like, this is so cool.

00:00:20:23 - 00:00:37:23
Heidi Beierle
And look at here's all the people that I passed on the route like they have. They've all been here. That's so cool. And so it just feeling like really well cared for. And it's like, is it have anything to do with the fact that I have the flag on the front of my bike right now? What's going on?

00:00:37:25 - 00:01:03:07
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Heidi Beierle, author of the new book, Heidi Across America. We are going to be diving into what possessed her to ride her bike all across America, through the heartland of America, and what she learned from that experience. So let's get right to it with Heidi.

00:01:03:09 - 00:01:07:03
John Simmerman
Heidi, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.

00:01:07:05 - 00:01:10:06
Heidi Beierle
Oh, thank you so much for having me, John. I super appreciate it.

00:01:10:08 - 00:01:21:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. So, you are on book tour right now. We're going to be talking a little bit about that. But let's go ahead and introduce yourself to the audience. So who the heck is Heidi?

00:01:21:23 - 00:01:44:09
Heidi Beierle
Well hello everybody. I'm Heidi by early. I am an artist and author and a slow traveler, and I have had a previous, previous work experience in bicycle tourism, equitable transportation and yes, here I am delighted.

00:01:44:12 - 00:01:58:02
John Simmerman
Yay, yay. That's fantastic. And we're going to spend a lot of time talking about, that new book, which we've, we've teased a little bit here. But what I don't know about you is what type of an artist are you? What do you when you say you're an artist? What do.

00:01:58:02 - 00:01:58:15
Heidi Beierle
You mean by.

00:01:58:15 - 00:02:02:19
John Simmerman
Artist? What? What type of work do you do?

00:02:02:21 - 00:02:23:23
Heidi Beierle
Mostly I love making stuff out of trash. I love just making things. Period. And I'm definitely a fan of collage art. All the random stuff that comes in the mailbox, gets a little bit of tape and exercise with an exacto knife, and I turn it into something else.

00:02:23:25 - 00:02:25:22
John Simmerman
Fantastic. That's great.

00:02:25:24 - 00:02:33:22
Heidi Beierle
And then I like to make them into postcards and mail them to people. So you get kind of like a personalized little artwork every once in a while.

00:02:33:28 - 00:02:54:12
John Simmerman
Yeah. Well, we're going to we're going to talk a little bit about we're going to talk a lot about your book, but I also want to pull up your website here. And so the landing page to your website is here. And we've got if we scroll down, we've got, some information on your book and, a welcome from you here.

00:02:54:14 - 00:03:06:27
John Simmerman
But you mentioned something in your introduction about slow travel. Talk a little bit more about what you mean by that. I, I'm fascinated by that term, slow travel.

00:03:06:29 - 00:03:37:23
Heidi Beierle
Yeah. Slow travel. You know, some people are familiar with slow travel and other people are like, I've never heard this before. What does what is this about? And slow travel, I think is a concept that piggybacks on the slow travel movement. This or I'm sorry, the slow food movement. This idea that ingredients come from a local area and you really take the time to enjoy the meal with a community that's prepared in the traditional way.

00:03:37:25 - 00:04:07:02
Heidi Beierle
And so there's, you know, the question is, how do you take this idea of travel and turn it into a local ism concept? And I also have been pretty interested in how do you take this idea of travel and make travel something that it's accessible to anybody? And so I've come up with these three principles that you have, on the screen right now, and you get it set up so that anybody can make slow travel their own.

00:04:07:02 - 00:04:38:26
Heidi Beierle
You find the thing that works for you and and you do that. And these three principles you could do, you know, independently of any of the others, or you could do two of them at the same time. Are all three at the same time? So micro travel and mindfulness is building on this idea that, number one, the most sustainable form of travel is to stay home, not actually go anywhere, but that you don't you don't have to go very far to have a transformative experience in the outdoors.

00:04:38:29 - 00:05:10:21
Heidi Beierle
It could be as simple as going outside and experiencing the weather. It could be a walk in the neighborhood. It could be, you know, just a day bicycle ride or just going on a little paddling expedition in your neighborhood. If you're near water. And the emphasis is really on engaging your your senses and noticing what you notice, it's if it's less mediated by technology, you know, you're really being present with your experience.

00:05:10:21 - 00:05:39:12
Heidi Beierle
You might have a phone, like a lot of people like to take pictures. And I think that is one way to help focus the kind of seeing that we're having. But it's also you don't have to be visually oriented to travel in this way. The second one is this idea of the journey as the destination where you might have a destination in mind who might not, but wherever it is you're heading is of secondary importance to how you're getting there.

00:05:39:15 - 00:06:11:09
Heidi Beierle
And part of what I like about journey is the destination is, you know, the emphasis on transportation, the idea that when you're exposing yourself to the elements, as you're moving from place to place, you're really getting a lot more information about about where you are. So, yeah, like my my book is about bicycling across the country. That's a really good example of the journey as the destination.

00:06:11:12 - 00:06:39:11
Heidi Beierle
I was headed to Washington, DC from Oregon, but the trip, the experience that I had actually happened while I was getting there, it wasn't something that came about because of where I was headed or the actual place. And then this idea of living somewhere else is, you know, the destination is important. Like this gives us the flexibility of like, actually, maybe we want to get on an airplane from time to time and go somewhere.

00:06:39:13 - 00:07:18:27
Heidi Beierle
But Slow travel asks that if we do something like that, that we just really sink into the local environment and experience of a place, the food, talking to the people, getting recommendations from locals, the language, the environment and it emphasizes minimal plans, no plans, flexible plans, you know, so maybe you pick one site that you want to go see on any given day, but the rest is sort of white space and the opportunity to challenge, challenge yourself.

00:07:18:27 - 00:07:48:00
Heidi Beierle
Like, can you be bored and find out that you know that the mishaps and the boredom are actually the more memorable experiences for how you you're engaging with the space or the struggle that you're having mentally and part of that is this type of travel is the kind of travel that you come away from feeling refreshed and rejuvenated from, rather than, wow, I need a vacation from this trip I just went on.

00:07:48:00 - 00:08:18:06
Heidi Beierle
Which happens, you know, when you're you're doing too many things and you're not really just allowing yourself to to be. Yeah. So like an example also of live somewhere else that is a micro travel would be like gardening or something like that where you're, you're going somewhere nearby, but you're just really spending time in, in a particular area, really soaking in what you're, you're getting again.

00:08:18:09 - 00:08:47:10
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. What's interesting is you were just describing all of that. It I just completed, two months in Europe. And of that two months, about three weeks were in the Netherlands, in Utrecht. And one of the things that that I love about sort of embedding myself into a city for multiple days, multiple weeks, is that you do get into that rhythm of feeling like, oh, I'm living somewhere else.

00:08:47:10 - 00:09:21:27
John Simmerman
I'm living here. I'm experiencing life as if I actually did live there. And since I always travel with my folding bike, my Brompton, you know, my travel is, is always, a mixture of fast travel, the airplane and maybe the train and sometimes even a high speed train and slow travel, because as soon as I get off of that mode, I get on my little folding bike and put my luggage on it and strap it all on and take off, I will literally, you know, ride from the airport, you know, with my luggage on and go to my destination.

00:09:21:27 - 00:09:41:14
John Simmerman
Or if, if I need to jump on the train and go to the next city or, you know, at least from Amsterdam to attract, it's easier to, to certainly do it that way. Since I'm not my rig isn't set up for, you know, long, long distance travel. But I can certainly, you know, ride in the next town over that sort of thing.

00:09:41:14 - 00:10:06:06
John Simmerman
But you're the way you're describing it. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's kind of like what? How I've been traveling, you know, around the world is, is that combination of combining the fast travel and the slow travel and then the richness that comes from traveling closer to human speed is you're able to to really, really notice things at a different, a different level.

00:10:06:09 - 00:10:13:09
John Simmerman
And you've got this little Venn diagram. I want you to describe this little Venn diagram and that sweet spot in the middle here.

00:10:13:12 - 00:10:36:24
Heidi Beierle
Absolutely. And I also want to say like this diagram is probably not created exactly right. I think, you know, this climate friendly travel is is more under some of these other things. But I was I have these these three concepts in mind. And I was trying to figure out how how do they relate. Like what do I learn by taking these ideas and putting them together.

00:10:36:27 - 00:11:00:01
Heidi Beierle
So I have this idea of slow travel, and I was trying to understand and explore what that was. So then when I put climate friendly travel with it, I was like, okay, so this is, you know, this is a long distance bike ride. What else is this? You know, this is like, a paddle board adventure kayaking trip.

00:11:00:01 - 00:11:09:25
Heidi Beierle
This is, you know, a backpacking journey. This could also be train travel. Honestly. You know, it's like speed is relative.

00:11:09:27 - 00:11:13:16
John Simmerman
Yeah. Amtrak can oftentimes be very slow.

00:11:13:18 - 00:11:16:16
Heidi Beierle
That's a really. Yeah. I mean.

00:11:16:18 - 00:11:18:23
John Simmerman
Unfortunately, tragically.

00:11:18:26 - 00:11:44:25
Heidi Beierle
Yeah. I mean, even air travel can be, can be slow too. But when I think when the climate friendly travel with the slow travel, that's where like the airplane gets ruled out and in the climate friendly arena. So that's why there's, you know, there's still some, some bliss, blue space available because there are absolutely times when, when you do take an airplane and it still is slow travel.

00:11:44:28 - 00:12:03:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I guess to to also interject you, I'm glad you mentioned the relative ness in terms of what's fast and what's slow travel. Because one could say that. Well, yeah, I'm taking the slow route, the slow travel. I'm, I'm afraid of flying. And so I'm going to do a road trip. I'm going to drive, you know, across country.

00:12:03:09 - 00:12:14:29
John Simmerman
And so in that person's mind, it's, it's slower travel, not as slow as riding your bike across the country. But yeah. So it is relative in sense. It's. Yeah.

00:12:15:01 - 00:12:42:20
Heidi Beierle
Right. And I mean, I was talking to somebody earlier this summer about my ride across the country and, you know, an average day in the Western states for me with 75 to 90 miles a day. And she was like, that sounds like way faster than I could do. And I'm like, yes, I mean, you do what's comfortable for you if what is a comfortable distance for you is 25 miles a day or 50 miles a day, that's great.

00:12:42:20 - 00:13:07:15
Heidi Beierle
It's a it's not in relation to what other people are doing. It's it's just in relation to what you're able to do as a, as the great find the thing that that works for you. So the equitable access to outdoor recreation was a really important part for me as I was thinking about, well, not everybody can ride a bike, you know, across the country or even even ride a bike.

00:13:07:15 - 00:13:52:03
Heidi Beierle
Like my mom isn't somebody who can can ride a bike anymore. And and so I was thinking, all right, so there are these different things that affect how people can engage with travel. Maybe they don't have very much time. Maybe they don't have very much money. Maybe they're excluded from outdoor spaces by their race or their body size, or, you know, their sexual orientation, or they're just you know, not willing to do certain things, not interested, not allowed the access to get places because of some identity that they they have or even if it's not visible.

00:13:52:06 - 00:14:25:09
Heidi Beierle
So when I was thinking about climate friendly travel and equitable access to outdoor recreation as as an overlap, I was like, okay, so for somebody who doesn't drive, for example, taking transit is one of those things that can can get somebody out to a recreation place. But then but then I was also thinking, and sometimes that's expensive, you know, or sometimes that takes more time than somebody has.

00:14:25:09 - 00:14:49:15
Heidi Beierle
Like, how how does that start to be more equitable in its orientation, which got got me actually to the, the sweet spot in the center, you know, like the neighborhood walk or attending a concert and in a park or things that are closer to home. This idea that you can still just go outside and experience the weather.

00:14:49:15 - 00:15:23:01
Heidi Beierle
And if if you're very limited in your ability to move around, that's still something that you can do. And then this idea of like slow travel and equitable access to outdoor recreation like that, you know, like families sometimes are maybe not not taking the most climate friendly travel options, but they're still a great benefit in driving as a family to a destination or or whatever it happens to be.

00:15:23:01 - 00:15:50:20
Heidi Beierle
So like going on a a farm tour was something I thought might be, you know, doing a driving tour of some outdoor spaces might not be the most climate friendly, something or other that you could do, but still qualifies as solo travel and still meets the needs of everybody involved. Yeah. And then that, you know, and so there were just a few things that were left over that, you know, I was like, so, so what is the slow travel?

00:15:50:20 - 00:16:09:06
Heidi Beierle
That's just kind of purely slow travel. And that was that was where I got to this idea of, you know, live somewhere else, this idea that you might fly. But what does that mean for, for once you are somewhere. Yeah. It's just like, really experiencing a place.

00:16:09:09 - 00:16:40:28
John Simmerman
Yeah. You know, you're you grew up in Wyoming and that's something that you talk about quite a bit extensively in the book. And, and one of the things that I thought of when I saw this Venn diagram and the overlapping and the, you know, the equitable access to outdoor recreation and really just outdoors in general in nature. I thought about the national park system, and I thought about how so much of the national park system was developed around this concept and idea of driving through it versus.

00:16:40:28 - 00:17:16:23
John Simmerman
And it just always kind of irks me a little bit about, you know, the way that that is, is sort of oriented towards, you know, the, the individual personal automobile going through there. And I remember distinctly, you know, how hard some of the local advocates fought there in Wyoming, especially right there in Jackson, to be able to get, you know, the the shared use path and the trail, to Jenny Lake and being able to embrace more of that slow travel, being able to ride one's bike, you know, in that environment.

00:17:16:23 - 00:18:02:28
John Simmerman
And, and it's just like one of those weird sort of ironies. It's a paradox that these national parks are just so oriented towards a climate unfriendly form of travel, driving a personal automobile in it versus, you know, being able to, welcome, you know, cycles, especially when you think of like, people with mobility access issues, you know, people who need an adaptive cycle or they're, you know, using a wheelchair or something like that, being able to, experience that, you know, that environment, you know, on a protected or separated, you know, way from the motorway, pathway through nature in, into nature, in, you know, and even don't even think about the national park,

00:18:02:28 - 00:18:32:17
John Simmerman
just think about urban environments, the ability to get away from the urban environment and get on to a rail trail and be able to experience nature in that way. And one of the things that I try to emphasize here on the Active Towns channel is that when we talk about all ages and abilities, you know, cycling networks and being truly safe and inviting for everyone, all ages and abilities is that it is empowering for accessibility for everybody.

00:18:32:20 - 00:19:01:20
John Simmerman
And I think that's a really, really, you know, interesting point. So that was one of the things that kind of popped into my head knowing that you were from Wyoming and, you know, with, you know, Yellowstone right there and you know, that legacy of, oh, yeah, this is a drive through experience and you can name the various national parks that are now realizing how devastating that has been, you know, to the experience as well as to the parks themselves.

00:19:01:23 - 00:19:08:06
Heidi Beierle
Yes, I had all kinds of thoughts pop into my head while you're talking there. And they just went they went poof.

00:19:08:09 - 00:19:10:26
John Simmerman
Sorry about the soliloquy. There.

00:19:10:28 - 00:19:38:04
Heidi Beierle
Yeah. So, I mean, one thing I really appreciated about pedaling through Yellowstone was just and and as a on a bike tour, generally, you get a very kinesthetic experience of the landscape. You, you know, the way you experience terrain and topography. You know, it's the it's the hills you're going up. Like you have a greater appreciation for how steep things are.

00:19:38:04 - 00:20:16:22
Heidi Beierle
It's it's the smells that you encounter like, oh, I'm in a bog. I don't know that immediately, but, you know, I smell it, you know, and suddenly, like, I become aware of of what's out there or, you know, the, the things that you get to hear when you're not enclosed in a bubble. And I do also think, though, that the, the tourism industry is, is partly at fault in why people do so much driving to recreation and because there's not a whole lot of, a whole lot of options.

00:20:16:24 - 00:20:43:08
Heidi Beierle
Another challenge is some of the some of the national parks are very difficult to get to, like a train ride a bike to Yellowstone National Park from. Wherever you might be, it's it's really a kind of an undertaking to get there, even even if you live in a nearby city. Well, Jackson might be the nearest city is it's not a giant city.

00:20:43:08 - 00:21:06:09
John Simmerman
That's really accessible. But again, they worked really, really hard to be able to get that pathway in so that it it was a very, very comforting experience. I've access the park before from the Montana side and you know, know that you. Oh yeah. Okay. I can see but again, you mentioned the smell and so of the smells and so.

00:21:06:09 - 00:21:28:18
John Simmerman
Oh, we've got a yellow we've actually got a Yellowstone, old faithful. I think this is all faithful. And and also to your point of, you know, oftentimes these places are being loved to death. There's just so many there's a crush of people there. What does this image bring back for you about that experience?

00:21:28:20 - 00:22:01:21
Heidi Beierle
Well, I, I had been to Yellowstone when I was very young, and I do remember watching Old Faithful. And when I showed up, I thought, if, you know, I, I ever stopping to take a little bit of a rest break, you know, have, afternoon tea and, and I was like, well, I know what sort of regular thing, like, how long before, before it goes, goes off again, like, I can, I can wait long enough to to see Old Faithful.

00:22:01:28 - 00:22:31:07
Heidi Beierle
Yeah. Cuz I just thought, what am I going to do this again? Like, I should, I should see it. So I found myself a nice a nice place to sit. And I had just, you know, I talked to people while I was waiting for it to go off and another bicycle tourist found me. And so we had we had a fun conversation about tourist behavior in Yellowstone and, and then, you know, and then and then Old Faithful went off and it was it was beautiful.

00:22:31:07 - 00:23:00:02
Heidi Beierle
And, you know, there's people everywhere watching it. And then to my shock and horror, almost like it's still spewing and people are leaving in droves, like they only came to see how high it went somehow. And then they were leaving and I was like, why? It's like, why wouldn't you stay longer? Like, why would she linger here? Are you, like, worried about the line in the restroom?

00:23:00:02 - 00:23:41:09
Heidi Beierle
I don't know, like what people were doing there, but, you know, everybody has something, something different that they're, they're looking at. Maybe they've already seen it that day. I don't know, but, Yeah, I just was I was surprised at different, you know, different kinds of tourist behavior. And Yellowstone is, you know, it's it's understandable to me why people would drive through Yellowstone because the the ground is really kind of dangerous in the sense, and if if you haven't seen open range before, that also, I don't, you know, I don't know why.

00:23:41:09 - 00:24:03:17
Heidi Beierle
I don't know why people get out of their vehicles and try to pet the bison, but they they do that. That was uncomfortable for me to pedal through Wyoming with the open range and just know that I didn't actually have any, any way to escape an animal that that might be, intent on getting through.

00:24:03:19 - 00:24:09:06
John Simmerman
You weren't wearing a coat of car, as my friend Kyle Van Damme likes to call it.

00:24:09:09 - 00:24:12:09
Heidi Beierle
So true, so true.

00:24:12:11 - 00:24:31:16
John Simmerman
Yeah. So. But yeah, that brings up a really interesting point, seeing how impatient people were to being able to want to like get back to whatever they're doing. There seems to be this pressure in, in Western society and especially in our society here in North America, to be able to want to like go, go, go. We got it.

00:24:31:19 - 00:24:53:01
John Simmerman
All right. What's next? We got to move fast. We got to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. And it's not about the journey. It's not about, you know, that slowing down and seeing things. I don't know what this particular doodle is referencing, but for me, it it kind of illustrates what I say all the time, which is that when I'm walking or biking, I'm cool.

00:24:53:03 - 00:25:03:07
John Simmerman
I'm traveling closer to human speed, and I notice things a little bit more. What's what's the story behind this doodle?

00:25:03:09 - 00:25:31:11
Heidi Beierle
Yeah. I mean, this is in some ways this is me when I'm out. I spent a lot of time walking the trail during the pandemic for my mental health. And yeah, I don't know, I just I spent a lot of time walking the trail, and I every day for a long time. And I witnessed, you know, the change of the seasons and all of these discover these.

00:25:31:18 - 00:26:00:13
Heidi Beierle
And, you know, I another I could draw one that's like looking up because I think that's something that we don't do very often. And the things that you can, you can see when you look up like a bird's looking down at you or ness or you know, something interesting about the clouds or the sky, but but this idea that, you know, as humans, we, we do tend to look down more and, yes, there are all kinds of little, little gems, on the ground.

00:26:00:13 - 00:26:32:22
Heidi Beierle
And, you know, I also for me, this is kind of like the the creepy crawly lover in me is like, oh, look at this cool little whatever it is, like a spider or just. Yeah, I think the invitation, like, where are we that that child within that is still so interested in collecting rocks and so it's, it's, I think, an invitation to, to just follow, follow the whimsy when you're outdoors.

00:26:32:24 - 00:26:40:27
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I'll describe this for or I'll let you describe it for, for the listening only audience. What what is in this illustration.

00:26:41:00 - 00:27:02:16
Heidi Beierle
This is great. This is like the visual alt text. So it's this is a very it's basically like a stick person who's crouched down pointing at a little something on the ground, and there's a horizon line of sorts, which could be a trail. And then there's trees and shrubbery in the background. Yeah.

00:27:02:19 - 00:27:32:08
John Simmerman
Yeah. And that's kind of why that it for me, it really brings up this sort of feeling of like, yeah, slow slowing down and slow travel, being able to to feel, you know, the richness of what we're experiencing and really being able to. It's not about getting there quickly. It's it's, you know, you know, I think part of that three point that micro travel and mindfulness is like being mindful about where we're at.

00:27:32:11 - 00:27:50:08
John Simmerman
One of the things that I do, I'm a trail runner. And so when I run in the trail in the greenbelt here in Austin, which I'm able to access the trailhead by riding my bike, it takes me about eight minutes to get to the trailhead, lock my bike up at the Barton Springs pool, you know, access the greenbelt, get in there.

00:27:50:11 - 00:28:08:21
John Simmerman
And I always make a point of not wearing headphones. And I do that because I don't want to be distracted by music. I don't want to be distracted by a podcast or an audiobook that I might be listening in to. I want to, like, really be mindful about what I'm experiencing. I want to hear the sound of the birds in in there.

00:28:08:21 - 00:28:31:27
John Simmerman
I want to also pay attention to the fact that it's a very highly technical trail, and I could turn my ankle very easily, so I need to be focused. So yeah, I appreciate, you know, that aspect of combining the micro travel and the mindfulness aspect of really being able to experience what your, what you're going through that journey.

00:28:32:00 - 00:29:02:29
Heidi Beierle
Yeah, I, I did love the, the invitation to engage your senses as like in that part of it. And because we are also tend to be very visually dominant and in our culture. But there are people who, you know, who don't, don't see or they don't see well. And I think it's a really a really good exercise to engage all of our senses in what is the actual experience of this place.

00:29:02:29 - 00:29:36:24
Heidi Beierle
And one of my favorite things to do is smell things and even ask myself, like, what does the air smell like? Or if I'm listening, like, what are all the things I can hear? You know, it doesn't matter if they're all appealing or not appealing. What are those things like? Oh, there's there's traffic noise, but there's also frogs and there are birds and I don't really know the sounds of all the birds, but you know, there's I can I can pick out this one or I can pick out that one or whatever, whatever it happens to be.

00:29:36:24 - 00:30:02:07
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you just mentioned frogs and, I recently, had, Sarah Dykeman on the podcast, and, her book is right there, bicycling with butterflies. So she studies frogs, but she's passionate about butterflies, and, and Sarah actually has a nice little blurb on your book on the backside back cover of your book.

00:30:02:10 - 00:30:24:01
John Simmerman
And we're looking at an image right now of, the Active Towns bookshop. This is my own bookshop that I have, and where I profile those those folks that I've featured here on, on the podcast. And so, your book is now in the, in the bookstore there. And let's talk a little bit about the, the book, Heidi Across America.

00:30:24:03 - 00:30:35:21
John Simmerman
What's the background? What's the background story of this book? When did the trip happen? And talk a little bit about, you know, that process of getting this piece of work out, a.

00:30:35:23 - 00:30:40:09
Heidi Beierle
Long, long, long topic of conversation here? Okay. So and we.

00:30:40:09 - 00:30:46:24
John Simmerman
Won't we won't. We want to give too much away because we want people to actually buy the book and read it for us.

00:30:46:26 - 00:31:15:27
Heidi Beierle
That's what it's all about. That's right. So I pedaled solo across the country in 2010 from Eugene, Oregon to Washington, DC. I was in school at the University of Oregon and the Community Regional Planning Program at the time, and was headed to preserving the historic road conference. How? And so the book is kind of like, how did this come about?

00:31:15:29 - 00:31:55:09
Heidi Beierle
And the the story in a nutshell is about falling in love with America. As part of my experience and part of how that happened came from my interactions with strangers and people along the way who were very caring and loving and all of all of that good energy worked on me in ways that I did not anticipate. And in addition to falling in love with my country, I also fell in love with myself.

00:31:55:11 - 00:32:24:11
Heidi Beierle
So it it took me a while to realize and understand, like the negativity I had towards myself. I didn't understand why other people cared so much about me. And and then I finally realized like, oh, I am. I am the one who is withholding love for myself. It's not that I am unlovable, it's just that I am not allowing myself to to feel that so that that's the the story.

00:32:24:11 - 00:32:53:10
Heidi Beierle
The story is it's a love story in a sense. It's an adventure story, too. So you get a lot of biking across the country. So when I during the 2008 recession, I was feeling depressed and lonely and underemployed, and I really needed some kind of change in my life. And I, I kept seeing these job postings for active transportation planners, and I was like, oh, I want that job.

00:32:53:10 - 00:33:20:24
Heidi Beierle
That sounds like the perfect job for me. And, you know, the requirements for the position required a degree that I did not have. And I decided when the economy was in the toilet, like, I don't know, maybe, maybe I should just go back to school, do two years, get the degree, and then the economy will be much better and I'll have an opportunity to go get this job.

00:33:20:27 - 00:33:49:13
Heidi Beierle
So I went back to school. I was 34. And, you know, I had I had a life, I had friends, I had things going on. Even though I wasn't feeling really great about myself. And school just, like brought my world to a screeching halt, you know, don't see. Or is it wasn't that I couldn't see my friends, but like my schedule, trying to keep up with the deadlines and everything, I just I wasn't able to hang out with people.

00:33:49:13 - 00:34:13:00
Heidi Beierle
And so the few things that I had been doing to nourish myself and feel better about, about who I was and where I was headed, started to get smaller and smaller, and I was kind of going on this downward spiral thinking, wow, I made the worst decision of my life by doing this. I'm not I'm not sure I should I should keep doing it.

00:34:13:00 - 00:34:31:23
Heidi Beierle
So at the end of the first term at school, you know, I was like, really? You know, the only thing I want to do is ride my bike. Is it so important for me to be in school and do this thing? Like, is it is it really going to change things for me? And the universe was paying attention.

00:34:31:23 - 00:35:06:14
Heidi Beierle
And while I was having this like, dismal moment and sent a message via email from my mother and it was, it was an announcement about the Preserving Historic Road conference, and she sent an email. It was pretty brief, you know, hey, let's go to this conference and hang out with your uncle. My uncle lives in Washington, DC, and, I thought, no, I mean, thanks, but no, that doesn't really sound like what I think would be an amazing experience.

00:35:06:16 - 00:35:30:01
Heidi Beierle
Where is the bike ride part of it? And I was looking at the data and the conference was in September before the second year of school started. And I thought, well, I don't know, could I spend the summer doing that, like I could leave in June and get there? And so I wrote this very flip email. I was like, sure, I'll ride out there and meet you.

00:35:30:03 - 00:35:54:20
Heidi Beierle
And then as soon as I sent it, I was like, yes, yes, this is the thing that I need. Like, of course I'm going to ride my bike across the country. Wouldn't everybody? So I didn't think about other options for how I was going to do this. It was just like, I want to spend my summer riding my bike, and there's this opportunity and I'm just going to do it.

00:35:54:22 - 00:36:21:22
Heidi Beierle
And I was all right. I mean, I was somebody who had been on solo adventures before. I had been a backpacker solo mountaineer before, so I knew about the gear. I also knew about putting myself in risky situations by myself, and I didn't, you know, I didn't really give it a whole lot of thought about. Was I going to go with other people or not?

00:36:21:22 - 00:36:42:06
Heidi Beierle
Mostly I was thinking, oh, I don't want to. I don't want to involve anybody else in this. Like, who's going to want to come along on this journey? I'm going to try and talk to people and do research and pedal and seem like way too much to try and factor somebody else into, you know, what was just going to be like me?

00:36:42:06 - 00:36:46:00
Heidi Beierle
Me headed, headed toward, headed toward the East coast.

00:36:46:00 - 00:37:22:05
John Simmerman
So yeah. And we've got the image here on on screen of you. I think that this looks like the adventure cycling, headquarters. Is that correct? It is there in Missoula. I recognize that. And, and you're holding up the Trans America stickers, and this is this is relevant to sort of one of the other subthemes of the book that you're studying is the impact of other crazy people like you that are riding their bikes through, you know, long distances or even shorter distances, but they're just riding.

00:37:22:07 - 00:37:36:10
John Simmerman
And the impact that that has on these smaller towns who oftentimes have been forgotten about, you know, by the rest of the of the country. Talk a little bit about the relevance of these stickers.

00:37:36:12 - 00:38:05:26
Heidi Beierle
So because I was setting bicycle tourism and rural economic development, I was looking for opportunities to engage the communities in a conversation while I was out pedaling. Like, did they think cyclists actually were a benefit to their communities, or did they see us as pesky sorts of people? And I really so in this image I'm wearing, the US bicycle route system jersey is kind of purpley.

00:38:05:29 - 00:38:38:07
Heidi Beierle
And, I really wanted that jersey. And so, I, I reached out to Adventure Cycling Association. I was like, hey, is there some partnership that we can do? I'd love to advocate for the bicycle route system. I really want to wear this jersey. I also would really appreciate your maps to help me go. Follow, follow, every that's already been planned out and vetted and they, you know, they're like, yes, this this sounds great.

00:38:38:07 - 00:39:10:27
Heidi Beierle
And we have this project also that we're working on where we want to reach out to businesses along the routes and, basically sign the route by having these window, window decals, placed in the businesses. I thought, well, that sounds great. You know, handing out a decal gives me an opportunity to talk to a business owner and, and get get their $0.02 on how how they perceive cyclists, you know, and if they want the decals, that's great.

00:39:11:00 - 00:39:36:09
Heidi Beierle
And if they don't, that's also good information. And nobody ever refused a decal. Everybody was very interested. Some people even put it up right away, while I was there, which was always amazing. And I think one of the things that really didn't immediately strike me about these decals. So the Trans America Trail is a very kind of a patriotic experience.

00:39:36:11 - 00:40:06:24
Heidi Beierle
And the decals has an American flag on it, and I didn't want to be I didn't want to be America when when I set out, that was I mean, I wanted to be purple and orange and and that was that was kind of my thing. The Transamerica Trail, established in 1976 to celebrate the U.S Bicentennial. And as I was going along, I went, you know, I wasn't really thinking about the flag.

00:40:06:24 - 00:40:35:17
Heidi Beierle
And then when I was in Colorado and I was getting ready to head out into eastern Colorado and, and the Great Plains, one of my colleagues from school suggested that I carry an American flag with me, and I didn't understand why that would be something I would want to do. But it it also got me, you know, like, put my antenna up.

00:40:35:17 - 00:40:57:22
Heidi Beierle
I was like, okay, I'll look for one because I was always making a point of buying things when I stopped. And in the little businesses, it seemed like if I was going to be a, you know, an honest and good ambassador for bicycle tourism, that it really was in my best interest to to buy something, no matter how small and the places that I stopped.

00:40:57:25 - 00:41:18:25
John Simmerman
And, and and if I can interject, in your book, you talk about the fact of meeting one of your fellow travelers who really emphasized that so that you went out of your way to, to to point out that, oh, yeah, that's what he you know, I was reminded that that's essential to these small businesses.

00:41:18:27 - 00:41:50:10
Heidi Beierle
Yeah. His, you know, he he had a more aggressive stance on it than I had going out. But I really appreciated, what he was offering, which partly was, even if there is nothing you want in that store today, you can still buy something. And you should, even if you give it to somebody else. So, you know, that was a dimension that that I hadn't really, really thought about as like, oh yeah.

00:41:50:10 - 00:42:24:03
Heidi Beierle
And and recognizing that in the landscape, you know, you come across the historic filling stations and then, you know, the convenience stores and there it's it's still, a network of, of all of these businesses that, you know, as cyclists, we can use the driving infrastructure and vice versa. You know, people who are driving still want to stop and eat at a restaurant or something, you know, stay stay in the lodging establishments, even if it's not as frequently maybe as as a bicyclist.

00:42:24:03 - 00:42:54:10
Heidi Beierle
So it did seem important, like bicycle tourists have, I think, more of an opportunity to make that case for like off the beaten path routes, scenic byways and other things like that, where if you're not necessarily getting a whole lot of people driving in those areas because they're on the interstates and the main highways, and that's part of why the rural communities aren't doing all that well is because all that economic activity is now clustered around the the main driving routes.

00:42:54:10 - 00:43:07:02
Heidi Beierle
So it seems more important to me that, you know, cyclists are good ambassadors when when out in these more rural areas, it makes it makes them bigger difference. Our spending power.

00:43:07:08 - 00:43:27:14
John Simmerman
And one of the things, one of the other subthemes of the book, of course, is that not only are you studying sort of these smaller towns and the impact of, of of people who are riding through them and spending some time in them. But at the end you reflect a little bit about, oh, wow, we're not a monolith either.

00:43:27:17 - 00:43:44:04
John Simmerman
You know, there's there's some of us that are, you know, going out of our way to, you know, spread the love and spend a little bit of money there. But you also talk about the summer like, you know, money is very, very tight and and they're doing everything they can to just make their way, you know, across the country.

00:43:44:04 - 00:44:06:20
John Simmerman
Maybe they even have to do it in piecemeal and stop and work a little bit before getting enough money to continue their journey. And then others, you talked a little bit about the really slowing down the experience and going out of their way to. You mentioned it earlier. You channeled it earlier off of that. Yeah. Whatever is your daily mileage that's perfect.

00:44:06:21 - 00:44:28:06
John Simmerman
Doesn't matter. You can go super, super slow. And there was one, you know, absolutely beautiful story about a couple in there that ended up becoming good friends. You became good friends with them, but they were like, you know, they were on even within the couple, they were on two different sort of mind wavelengths in terms of what the experience was about.

00:44:28:12 - 00:44:50:15
John Simmerman
But they would go out of their way to make sure that they stayed in comfortable places whenever possible. And so, yeah, it's not a monolith. It's not a bunch of, you know, like Lycra clad cyclists trying to, you know, do the race across America. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I know some of those guys as well, but it's it's all about the journey.

00:44:50:18 - 00:45:05:19
Heidi Beierle
Absolutely. Yes. And making it your own. Yes. Marianne Dermott I they were on secondhand bikes, which really blew my mind. I was like, how would you even consider doing that? But, you know, it, it takes off. It takes all types.

00:45:05:21 - 00:45:19:03
John Simmerman
And again, you mentioned it earlier, it's a little bit about the characters that you that you met, not only the characters, fellow characters on bikes, but also the characters in the communities.

00:45:19:06 - 00:45:59:29
Heidi Beierle
Yeah. So this is a picture of Marianne Dartmouth the day I met them. Just lovely, lovely folks there. You know, they're nicely tanned in the face and wearing their, wearing their, their bike jerseys. Yeah, but they weren't they weren't in a big hurry. There were from Wales, so they, they had, they were definitely out to enjoy the, enjoy the experience and I, I learned a lot from them about why it was they were enjoying the experience or how how it was possible and what I was doing wrong, which was too much.

00:46:00:01 - 00:46:28:08
Heidi Beierle
Having a deadline, being, you know, being burdened. But they were they were delightful people to, to bump into. And John, the the picture you showed before this was men named Joe. And in this picture he's he's standing I think he's standing in the street or parking lot, but it's it's all wet and the sky is gray and I had this very hilarious dousing when I was in Florence, Colorado.

00:46:28:10 - 00:46:52:27
Heidi Beierle
The only time I got caught in a major rainstorm was was in this town. I had just arrived in the town when the sky opened up and I'd been waiting and in various parts of the town, trying to find a place that was comfortable. At first I was under a tree, and then I thought that wasn't a good place to be in a major storm.

00:46:52:29 - 00:47:20:12
Heidi Beierle
And then I was at a gas station under an awning, and I was afraid that it was going to get hit by lightning. It would explode. And so I ended up at a restaurant just next to the gas station. And this man had come in while I was just standing outside. And by the time he came out, he offered to to drive me to wherever I was going, even though I was going to the hotel and I didn't know where it was.

00:47:20:12 - 00:47:43:03
Heidi Beierle
And he was so delighted to offer me some assistance. As small as it was, and it was not raining by the time we got to the hotel. And he was like, clearly upset about that. Like, you know, it could have been like this great story of of whatever. But he was he was just so, so wonderful.

00:47:43:03 - 00:47:57:12
John Simmerman
So yeah. Yeah, that is fantastic. In in a year, again, the characters that you meet along the way, these two were two of my favorites.

00:47:57:14 - 00:48:01:06
Heidi Beierle
Yes. The candy dancers, Mike and Rick.

00:48:01:09 - 00:48:17:24
John Simmerman
So it'll tell you a funny story real quick before you get into the candy dancers is, I know what a candy dancer is. Actually worked at a restaurant in, Ann Arbor, Michigan, which was called The Gandy Dancer. And that's the only reason why I know what it is. But I'll let you explain.

00:48:17:26 - 00:48:50:12
Heidi Beierle
So. All right, so, so these two guys are motorcycle riders, they're in their leather jackets, and they've got, bandanas tied around their heads. And they're wearing sunglasses, and they're they're mustachioed men, and they're very burly. I had this was in Missoula, Montana, and I had been noticing that there was a lot of overlap between what made for a good motorcycle route and what made for a good bicycling route.

00:48:50:12 - 00:49:14:27
Heidi Beierle
And I figured the same questions people had been asking me about where I was coming from and where I was going, were appropriate questions to ask these two men. And I was also very, uncomfortable about talking to that. One was like, I don't know, they're they're big, scary men. And they they wound up being really, really sweet.

00:49:14:27 - 00:49:37:10
Heidi Beierle
It was the it was the day after 4th of July. And as it turned out, they were they were pretty hung over, because they'd been up all night partying, but they, they were kind of playing around with me too, you know, they asked me, you know, do you know what a gandy dancer is? And I just I couldn't tell what was going on with them because they were very familiar with one another.

00:49:37:13 - 00:50:00:03
Heidi Beierle
You know, they kind of look similar. But, you know, I was like, I don't know, like a gandy dancer. Are they gay? Is that what they're trying to tell me? And so I was like, I don't know what it is like, fill me in. And they're like, oh, well, Gandy dancer, you know, we we lay rails, the railroad.

00:50:00:05 - 00:50:18:24
Heidi Beierle
And it's really hard, heavy, heavy work. And I was like, all right, well, I'm going to look it up just to make sure. But anyway, they were yeah, they were very, very sweet. And I appreciated the, the opportunity that I had to talk to them that they, they were kind of playing around with me.

00:50:18:27 - 00:50:45:21
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And the Gandy Dancer restaurant is in the, when I was working there back in the early, late 1980s, early 1990s, it was already a 100 year old historic, train station there in Ann Arbor, Michigan, hence the Gandy Dancer name. So really channeling that, that that concept of, you know, working on the rails. So you had mentioned it earlier.

00:50:45:21 - 00:51:18:28
John Simmerman
A big part of this journey was like, you know, learning to love yourself and discovering who you were. And, and it's I guess sometimes, you know, we embark on something like this and we're like, you know, we come up with this, this grand plan and you, you realize now that having a specific date that you had to be there, put a certain amount of psychic pressure on you as well versus somebody who's, you know, has more of a flexible approach to it and can take as long as it needs to take.

00:51:19:00 - 00:51:38:12
John Simmerman
But what else did you learn about yourself while you were out there? I know that's a big, broad question because some of it is covered in the book. But and I know you, you learned lots of different things. But really, when somebody asks you that question in an elevator and you go, okay, I gotta like 30s to come up with what I've learned.

00:51:38:14 - 00:51:41:07
John Simmerman
What did you learn?

00:51:41:10 - 00:52:15:00
Heidi Beierle
Well, you know that I feel like the learning, learning to love myself was, was, it was just such a a huge thing. Like anything else that I learned about myself kind of comes, comes back to that same idea. And part of what happened was it got really hot in the middle of, of the country. And so I had this pressure to like, I knew I had to pedal more than 50 miles a day if I was going to make it to the conference on time.

00:52:15:02 - 00:52:42:24
Heidi Beierle
And any day that I took a rest day, you know, put me that much further behind. And as it got hotter and hotter, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm, you know, like I'm I'm drowning in a sense. Like, I can't, I can't possibly catch up to where I need to be. And it's so hard. It's so hard to keep pedaling in this heat and, you know, I could have I could have maybe pedaled in the dark.

00:52:42:24 - 00:53:09:23
Heidi Beierle
But then I was like, but I'm not meeting anybody or seeing anything. If I'm pedaling in the dark at that doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. And it just it started to be like this thing of wearing me down. And because I was also by myself, I was aware of the danger that I was in. If, you know, if I passed out or something like that, there was nobody there to to know that to send an alert.

00:53:09:23 - 00:53:33:01
Heidi Beierle
And the cell service was also horrible too. So even if I found myself, you know, kind of like, oh, I need help, I didn't necessarily have access to it out on the road and and trying to also keep up with my own awareness, like monitoring myself to know, like, am I at that point where I need to, I need to intervene on my own behalf?

00:53:33:01 - 00:53:55:00
Heidi Beierle
Have I like, pushed myself over, over the edge? And because people were so nice to me, you know, I had somebody who who was very concerned. She said, well, do you know, it's like 100 degrees outside and I, I never looked at the weather. I had no idea. I just knew it was hot and I was like, whatever, you know?

00:53:55:00 - 00:53:57:04
Heidi Beierle
And yeah, it was like.

00:53:57:07 - 00:54:21:06
John Simmerman
Let me interject here for just a second. So let's, let's rewind and put this in context. This was 14 years ago. This is 2010. This is before carrying around a supercomputer in your back pocket that can give you real time, you know, mapping programs and, and, you know, weather alerts and all that you didn't have that you know, at your at your fingertips.

00:54:21:09 - 00:54:48:07
John Simmerman
And the other context that I want to bring up here is, is also, you know, you're getting pummeled by this heat, but you've in many ways, you've already passed the hardest parts of of this. You've already gone over the Continental Divide multiple, multiple times. And so, you know, it's that was hard in its own way. But you're now, you know, you're further east from from all of those challenges.

00:54:48:07 - 00:55:17:20
John Simmerman
You're just getting pummeled by the relentless heat in Mid-America, which is kind of like the subtitle, you know, of your, of your of your book here. It's it's, you know, Heidi, across America, one woman's journey on a bicycle through the, you know, the heartland. And so when I think of the heartland, I think of, you know, some of that challenging part of, of your ride when it got really, really difficult, in the heat and how it was pummeling you.

00:55:17:22 - 00:55:44:09
Heidi Beierle
Yes, absolutely. I think the, you know, the the terrain was much, much simpler, but, the weather was much more challenging. I think even now, heat waves are this very invisible danger that we don't really know how to rate right there danger. Because they don't look like anything, you know, and there's to come back to frogs like that.

00:55:44:12 - 00:56:08:07
Heidi Beierle
That story of the frog and in the pot and the boiling water, you don't, you know, you're you're in the pot. You don't necessarily have a good sense of how hot it is actually getting, but you are actually cooking in it. Yeah. And yeah, it was 14 years ago, but it was still a really intense heat wave. And there more frequent and more extreme now.

00:56:08:07 - 00:56:32:20
Heidi Beierle
But, you know, part of it was like 116 degrees with the heat index. It's it's absolutely unsustainable to be outside in that for any length of time, you know, and I'm, I'm trying to inch my way across the country. And I realized that I couldn't I couldn't do it anymore. I just, you know, if I wanted to kill myself, that was like a really good way to do it.

00:56:32:20 - 00:56:57:27
Heidi Beierle
And so it was like this, this strange, strange moment for me of realizing, you know, like the the frog in the, the boiling pot, like, I'm, I'm actually, like, committing suicide here by by continuing to do this. I'm not really intentionally doing that. I didn't set out because I wanted to push myself to this dangerous edge. Maybe at another point in my life.

00:56:57:27 - 00:57:21:16
Heidi Beierle
That was something that, you know, I was contemplating, but it wasn't it wasn't at that time. And I think it really took like all these people being really concerned about me and the weather, the heat intensifying to such a degree that I realized I was I was at that precipice. And did I really, you know, did I really want to step over it?

00:57:21:19 - 00:57:47:16
John Simmerman
Right. Yeah. One of my favorite, you know, lines in your book is, you know, kind of harkens to a little bit of our challenge that we have right now. And it also harkens back to, something that you mentioned about the decision to, you know, carry the American flag and, and that's, you know, towards the end of the book and, it's it's part of a quote that you have.

00:57:47:16 - 00:58:19:27
John Simmerman
But the sub part of the quote is that there are many more commonalities among us than differences. And that becomes a little bit of that. The subplot of, of what you were saying about really connecting with people that, that you're running into out there and in this, you know, sort of volatile time of presidential elections and us versus them and, and, you know, people talking past each other talk a little bit about that, because even 14 years ago, there was a little bit of that dynamic.

00:58:19:29 - 00:58:28:15
John Simmerman
Expand upon that a little bit and what you'd like, you know, people to be inspired about to read about these stories in the book because I do think they should pick up the book.

00:58:28:17 - 00:58:54:13
Heidi Beierle
Yes, absolutely. Well, you know, there was this this thing about the flag. My, my, fellow student had suggested I get a flag, and I'd been looking for a flag to buy in these stores because they were everywhere in, in the landscape, in the heartland. And, you know, I never I never found one in, in a store to buy, which kind of baffled me.

00:58:54:13 - 00:59:14:24
Heidi Beierle
I was like, how how is this how is this possible? I did eventually have a flag and put it on my bike. The first day when I left Kansas and entered into Missouri, it's it's a great story about how I came across this flag, but you have to read the book.

00:59:15:01 - 00:59:17:20
John Simmerman
That's right.

00:59:17:22 - 00:59:41:19
Heidi Beierle
That's that's not a teaser. It's a tell. And any podcast or anything like that, you have to read it. So when I, when I had the, the flag and I put it on my bike this, this particular day, it was also felt very symbolic because I had such a hard time in Kansas, and I was really looking forward to getting to Missouri like thinking that somehow crossing the state line was going to totally change.

00:59:41:22 - 01:00:08:10
Heidi Beierle
Change how much fun I was having, or because I was not having any fun. And I thought, you know, the way it started to have like, this kind of mythic status, like it's is this is a protective amulet that I have. And, you know, I had on the front of my bike where I was carrying all my gear and I was enjoying watching it flap in the, in the wind.

01:00:08:10 - 01:00:31:10
Heidi Beierle
And as I was riding and, and I thought, you know, it's like thinking about all the different ways that America had been showing up in my life and how it was represented by this flag. And when I crossed into Missouri, there's this is like a gas station right at the state line. And, I was stopping to take a picture of the sign and somebody, a man said, hey, do you want me to take your picture with the sign?

01:00:31:11 - 01:00:54:16
Heidi Beierle
Right? I was like, okay. And when I got back up onto the the road, he hand my camera back, but he wasn't ready to leave. He had a few things that he wanted to tell me, and one of them was that all the men were friendly in Missouri, and I was like a very random thing to share, but okay, we'll have to see what I do with that information.

01:00:54:19 - 01:01:14:28
Heidi Beierle
And then, the other thing was like, oh, and you got to go to cookies and have pie because anybody who's anybody has pie cookies. And I had already had breakfast. And Golden City, where cookies is not, not very far from the state line. And so I was like, okay, I'll, I'll go do this. I like to I like to follow the recommendations.

01:01:14:28 - 01:01:39:20
Heidi Beierle
Thank you. Cookies cafe that that people offer. And I had such a wonderful experience that cookies I mean, the pie was the pie was good, but there were these logbooks that the cyclists who had passed through cookies signed, and there were years and years and years of logbooks. And I was like, wow, this is like a jackpot of bicycle tourism information.

01:01:39:20 - 01:01:56:24
Heidi Beierle
And I was like, this is so cool. And look at here's all the people that I passed on the route like they have. They've all been here. That's so cool. And so it just feeling like really well cared for. Like, is it have anything to do with the fact that I have the flag on the front of my bike right now?

01:01:56:24 - 01:02:19:10
Heidi Beierle
What's going on? And I walked outside and I took this picture which, you know, cookies Cafe. The sign is red with white lettering and the building was white. And there are these pots of petunias. They had red and white petunias flowing out of them, and there was a post office right next door. And so there's the blue mailbox and the American flag flying in the wind.

01:02:19:10 - 01:02:43:25
Heidi Beierle
And it was a beautiful blue sky at the hay. And I was like, look at this. It's like red, white and blue like, this is like a classic American day. And I feel so good. I feel so cared for. Yeah, maybe there's something to this idea that, you know, America is really about the love in our hearts and how we're connecting to each other.

01:02:43:27 - 01:02:59:25
Heidi Beierle
And it was a kind of a comfortable idea to explore. And I was like, okay, well, I'll just, I'll wear it. I'll put the idea, and I'll see what happens. And it was an epic day, but by the end of the day, I thought, yes, absolutely. That's what this.

01:02:59:25 - 01:03:15:10
John Simmerman
Is. That's what this is about. And again, folks, I highly recommend that you pick up your own copy of Heidi Across America. Heidi, this has been so much fun. Chatting with you here today. Thank you for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.

01:03:15:12 - 01:03:19:01
Heidi Beierle
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I just love chatting with you about all this.

01:03:19:06 - 01:03:35:04
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Heidi Byerly. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up! Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, be honored to have you subscribed to the channel. Just click on that subscription button down below and ring the notifications bell.

01:03:35:11 - 01:03:54:12
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. It's easy to do just head on over to active towns. Georgie and click on the support tab at the top of the page. Again, thank you so much for tuning in. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness.

01:03:54:19 - 01:04:14:11
John Simmerman
Cheers and again sending a huge thank you out to all my Active Towns Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patreon. Buy me a coffee YouTube. Super! Thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the Active Towns store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated. Thank you all so much!