Our Book Writing Journey Begins Again

(Available later this year)

Peter

We never intended to write a book, now we have the draft cover for our second! What do you think?

Our only goal when we rode our tandem bicycle unsupported across the USA for the first time was to see if we could do it, certainly not to write a book. While bicycling 4,362 miles from Washington state to Maine in 72 days was no joke, we did it, and we were hooked. The following year we rode the length of the Mississippi River, and the next Historic Route 66 (Green Bay, WI – Chicago, IL – Santa Monica, CA). We were on a roll, but still with no thought of writing a book.

During all of our trips we have posted to social media and blogged daily. Our only reason for doing this initially was to keep our family and friends up to date on our whereabouts, and to let them know we were still alive. No, really!

We began to think our bicycling adventures might have a broader appeal than we expected about 3/4 of the way through our first adventure. One day when checking our Facebook analytics, we discovered there were 6,300 people following us. Wait, what? Something was clearly going on. Maybe people were interested in what we were doing.

Over the next several years, we continued to post about our adventures and from time to time do a public presentation or an interview. The more trips we took and the more we shared them, the more we started to get the question, “When are you going to write a book?”

Tracy

Since writing our first book, “Coast to Coast on a Tandem,” in 2017, we have discussed writing another book about our Mississippi River or Historic Route 66 Bicycle Adventures, it just never seemed to be the right time. Book writing and marketing are a lot of work and take time. Lots of time! We often joke that our first trip only took us three months to complete but the book took a year to write. In early 2021 we finally decided to take a step toward writing another book and reached out to our editor to see if he was interested in working with us again. Unfortunately, he had retired from the editing and book publishing business – bummer. Now what? Once again writing a second book was put on the back burner.  

2022 was not going to let us give up that easily. In August, we drove to Corpus Christi, Texas to visit our youngest daughter, Alexandra. Our road trip took us near many of the roads we bicycled during our 2016 Historic Route 66 Bicycle Adventure. Peter and I kept saying, “I remember that road” or “We stopped at that gas station for a break and a snack, remember?” I finally pulled up our blog on my phone and began to read our daily posts about the area we were driving through. It bought back some great memories and got us wondering again if we should began work on a second book. 

On our way to Texas, we stopped in Tulsa, Oklahoma (pop. 411,401) for a couple of days to visit friends. Tulsa was one of the many cities we bicycled through along Historic Route 66. During our visit we were able to have lunch with Robyn, one of our Warm Showers hosts during our bicycle trip. We reminisced about how pooped we were when we got to Tulsa and how gracious Robyn was to allow us to stay for two days. We spent the days, relaxing, getting to know Robyn and her partner Mike, and exploring the city with our very gracious hosts. Robyn told us a great story about Mike and her using the GPS tracker we carried to follow us all the way to Santa Monica, California. Once again, we got the itch to write our second book. 

Our next stop on our driving trip was Stroud, Oklahoma (pop. 2,748) for breakfast. Stroud is located between Tulsa and Oklahoma City and is the home of the famous Rock Café . The Rock Café opened in 1936 and is an iconic Route 66 stop. The café and its’ owner also inspired the Disney movie Cars. We stopped for lunch at the Rock Café in 2016. Peter will never forget what he refers to as “The best buffalo burger I have ever eaten.” We needed to check it out again. Unfortunately, we were there for breakfast and he could not get a buffalo burger – I thought he was going to cry. Breakfast did not disappoint though, and we were able to pick up some Route 66 memorabilia this time since we had plenty of room in our car. More memories.  

In September we were vendors at the Midwest Tandem Rally in Decatur, Illinois. We drove to the rally and once again crossed or traveled along our Historic Route 66 Bicycle route. As a vendor we were selling our book, “Coast to Coast on a Tandem.” Sales were great and many people asked when we were going to write about our other bicycle trips.

That did it, we needed to write our next book! When we got home, we reached out to our editor again to get some recommendations for potential publishers and editors. He surprised us when he said he would be willing to help with our second book – yes! He suggested we write about our third bicycle trip, Historic Route 66 because it is so iconic. People, worldwide, like to read about anything Route 66. We were sold and began work on the book in late 2022.           

Cyrus Avery was part of the Committee that laid down the U.S. highway system. He drew it from LA to Chicago, in 1926, passing through his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is known as the Father of Route 66.

Cyrus Avery created the moniker: America’s Main Street in 1926.

The other moniker Mother Road was coined by John Steinbeck in his novel “Grapes of Wrath” (1939).

Note: Message us if you have questions and/or would like to be put on our book pre-release list.