Heidi Across America is a new book published by Health Communications. It tells the story of one woman's journey on a bicycle through the heartland in 2010, as she explores self discovery and slow travel. Wyoming Public Radio's Grady Kirkpatrick spoke with the author, Heidi Beierle.

Editor’s note: This transcript has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Grady Kirkpatrick: Welcome, Heidi.

Heidi Beierle: It's so wonderful to be here. Thanks for having me, Grady.

GK: You are originally from Wyoming, now in Washington State. What inspired you to make this extraordinary coast-to-coast trek from Oregon to Washington, D.C.?

HB: Well, I was having a hard time in life around the time of the 2008 recession. I was looking at these jobs that sounded very appealing to me, like active transportation planner, and they required a degree that I did not have to be qualified.

And while the economy was kind of in the toilet, I thought, ‘Maybe what I need to kind of get unstuck is to go back to school and get this relevant degree so I can do this work that feels meaningful and purposeful in my life.’ So I went back to school in 2009, and it was really disruptive to my personal life.

I was like, ‘Wow, this is the wrong decision? This is making me feel worse, not better.’ And all I really wanted to do was ride my bike. That seemed like the thing that would just feel very nourishing to me.

While I was kind of in this downward spiral at the end of my first term, my mom sent me an email and it was about this preserving historic road conference in Washington, D.C. I have an uncle out there and her email was pretty simple. It was like, ‘Hey, let's go to this conference and hang out with your uncle.’ Even though the conference sounded interesting to me, the idea of just going to a conference and hanging out with family did not sound like the thing that would really excite me. I don't know where I was in life, but I was looking at the dates and I was like, ‘Oh, it's in the middle of September. I could actually go there before school started again the next year.’

So I just wrote this kind of flip email back and I was like, ‘Sure, I'll pedal out there and meet you.’ As soon as I sent the email, I thought, ‘Now, that is a great idea. I love that.’ So that was the genesis of the idea.

I'd never had any ambitions to ride across the country before that, but suddenly I was like, ‘I'm going. I'm just going to pedal there.’

GK: Once that was decided, I guess the next big decision was the route. How did you decide upon the route to travel?

HB: Because I was pretty busy with school in the months leading up to departing on this trip, I tapped into Adventure Cycling Association’s resources. They're an organization that has a number of long distance cross country cycling routes. The particular route I chose went through Eugene, where I was living in Oregon, and it ended in Yorktown, Virginia, which was kind of close to Washington, D.C.

The nice thing about the Adventure Cycling Association maps is they have all the things that the cyclists need coded on the map, so I didn't have to do any logistics. They figured out the route in terms of [whether] it's a low traffic road, or it's maybe a busier road but it has a wide shoulder. So I didn't have to worry over the details. I just kind of took the ready made map and went for it.

GK: Part of your research on the trip was exploring small towns and the economic benefits of travelers and bicyclists to towns across America. What were some of the things you discovered?

HB: I certainly discovered that the towns were spaced very nicely across the country, I thought, for a bicycle traveler, and I made a point to stop and buy things in these little towns – which is what most of the cyclists are doing

Part of what I discovered, too, from talking to other cyclists who were traveling is that not all bicycle travelers are cut from the same cloth. Some people were out camping and cooking on their own, so they were stopping in grocery stores more than restaurants. But then there was this other group of cyclists who didn't want to bother with that. They were eating at these small town restaurants and staying in the little motels, and they were really more interested in a comfortable experience.

So part of what I was understanding, at least for the rural communities, [was] that if they had a motel or lodging establishment, that was usually the largest investment that a bicycle traveler would have over the course of a day. If a community had a lodging establishment, they would receive more economic benefit from bike travelers coming through. Likewise, if there was actually a bike group through their community, that would actually help attract cyclists to the offerings that they had there.

So an Adventure Cycling route could be one of those things, but in Oregon, we were developing the scenic bikeways and other places. I think of Bentonville, Arkansas, where they really have a mecca of mountain biking or other things like that really support the power of people who ride bikes investing in the community.

GK: There's a stretch of highway [along] Wyoming 789 that many have traveled from the Sweetwater Station to Jeffrey City to Muddy Gap on to Rawlins. People have traveled with various modes of transportation over the years, from horses to wagon trains, on foot with hand carts, cars, motorcycles and, of course, bicycles. Was that particular stretch among the most challenging for you?

HB: It was certainly one of the more challenging places I went through, but it was also, I think, the most magical or spiritual. Being out on a bike, you're really exposed to the elements and the atmosphere and, for lack of a better word, the aura of a place.

When I was peddling out there, I just felt like the balance of time had dissolved and I could sort of experience those feelings of the many different – you listed all these different kinds of ways people have traveled through there, right? It's the pony express route and the Oregon Trail and Native peoples traveled through there because of South Pass. I just lost the sense of time about when I was existing in space and I felt like I could tap into all the energies of the people who had traveled through there. It was really a profound experience.