Road Trip Reflections

or why there is no prayer and no recipe to start your week

Bake & Pray has been technically out in the world for 12 days now, though it’s only been in the last few days that most folks have begun to receive their copies. It’s been such a joy (and a relief!) to watch the books arrive and the metrics normalize to what I might expect at this point in a book launch.

Last week, I shared with you all what a beautiful gift it was to open my launch season with the Bake & Pray retreat in the mountains of North Carolina. I was exhausted and so full at the same time. I embarked on my road trip book tour that same afternoon holding all of those feelings together.

I planned this road trip knowing that distraction from metrics would be helpful in these first weeks post-launch, and I knew it would be lovely to visit with friends along the way. I didn’t expect just how meaningful it would be, though, to meet readers each day of this trip too.

My friend Amanda came with me on the first leg of the journey—we drove on Sunday to Knoxville, where we stopped at Wildlove Bake House and met a member of my launch team before heading to Chattanooga. A pastor friend of mine hosted a Chattanooga Bake & Pray launch event at his church, where I got to connect with internet friends, real life friends (including a friend of 15 years’ newborn baby!), and friends who were brand new to me. 

Monday we drove on to Birmingham (after breakfast at Niedlov’s) for a day filled with more friends: breakfast with a writer friend, lunch with another writer/podcaster friend, afternoon snacks with a Boston-turned-Durham friend, a book launch event where I met more internet friends and readers, followed by dinner with Amanda’s childhood and former work friends. Also, bakery stops at Continental and Last Call bakeries were had.

If it sounds exhausting, it is. But we kept going.