(quick plug: this incredible Bomber Jacket is called the Kiaote Coat and it's available now, and was gifted to me for the tour from Boketto Brands)
The endless horizon of cuckoo ideas...
My mom (who you know by now is full of life-altering one-liners) always used to tell me—We plan, God laughs.
I’ve come to realize my life is more like an epic spiritual battle with God as my Joe Rogan announcer.
If I’ve got guardian angels, I’ve probably stressed them the-eff out, and they’ve likely gone from glorious celestial white to some frazzled shade of angelic grey.
One year ago today, I climbed into the cockpit of a 1944 relic and did the finger-caressing magneto massage to make her hum to life.
(I actually posted a reel on that startup that went "more viral" than anything on the tour, probably because coaxing these old birds to fire is an Olympic feat in and of itself.)
The first aeronautical book tour had officially commenced - little did I know it would also come to a screeching halt as quickly as it began.
Listening to the deep, unmistakable rumble of a vintage radial engine, I started my taxi—which, in a taildragger like this, requires a delicate dance of heel sliding and toe tapping just to keep her on the centerline.
Most modern airports weren’t designed for vintage birds with massive spans, and not smacking a gull-wing into a T-hangar is one of the biggest challenges of navigating the ramp environment (if shadows don’t touch - metal doesn’t touch - and - if you know, you know).
Moments later, I noticed the jet black drips and hot trickle of oil on my adorable new shoes…
My initial thought was, “Shit, that’s not good… my brand new shoes are ruined.”
I’d had a “stylist” for the tour who convinced me it was necessary you know “to look cute for the media.” (Remind me never again to pay someone to style me for a book tour in a 1944 warbird, because that is a complete contradiction in terms).
My second thought was: “Well, guess I’ll call it quits, put her back in the hangar, and go get a donut.”
I started deliberating about whether I wanted a crueller or a chocolate croissant, when Commander interrupted my sweet daydream and said, “It’s a broken oil line, it’ll only take me a minute.”
You should probably know: nothing ever takes a minute. Ever. And, with him around, I wasn’t gonna be off the hook, although if either of us deserved a donut, it was probably him.
If the universe wants to see how serious you are about a dream, it rarely hands you clear skies and a gentle tailwind.
For the next few days, I’ll be sharing hilarious stories and intimate reflections of the First-Ever Aeronautical Book Tour—complete with photos.
And although I had a combined 40K followers across social media at the time, en route I simply didn’t have the energy to share- not like this, and soon you’ll know why.
Not to mention, hindsight offers us that rose-colored 20/20 vision we just can’t access in the grease of the moment.
Join me down memory lane for my transcontinental book tour in Scarlett, our 1944 Stinson Reliant V77: 13 days, 33 states, and 7,000 nautical miles.
Without further ado… Day One.
Poptart vs. “The Big Poptart”
I was originally going to fly my 1946 Piper PA-12 on this book tour. But Commander found our magnificent 1944 Stinson Reliant just a few months before we went to launch.
I’ll never forget the text.
He sent a photo of a gorgeous red and white vintage taildragger. The words below said:
Hear me out, if we get this, you don’t have to worry about payload - you can bring all your clothes and boots AND the books, no one will know it’s not Poptart.
You see Poptart has a bit of clout herself. I raced her in the 2023 Palms to Pines - she was the slowest airplane in the all female cross country air race, whose history goes back to Amelia Earhart and the 99s. She was the only stick & rudder airplane, aka the only taildragger, and we cinched first place.
Poptart landed quite the fan base. She’s red and white. And tiny, which meant I could only bring the bare minimum if I planned to haul books across the country - each book weighs 1.35 pounds, or the equivalent of a cute outfit for each day.
Meet Scarlett (The Big Poptart)
Scarlett had spent thirteen long years sitting dormant in a dark hangar on Long Island. We had only just pulled her out of that deep sleep in July barely two months prior. We woke her up and shook off more than a decade of dust. She was willing, but vintage airplanes are a bit "basic B" and have an uncompromising way of demanding respect on their own terms. On the trek home she decided to crack her exhaust pipe… we had to take a taxi somewhere in Illinois to “the best welder in town.” She’s absolutely gorgeous and commands a lot of attention - the good kind and the bad kind, if you know what I mean.
So there I sat all of 7 minutes into the “Worlds First Book Tour” watching oil drip down behind the instrument panel, staring down at oil-soaked shoes. It was comical, frustrating, and humbling all at once.
Cue Commander- my in-flight mechanic and guardian angel of this journey. Looking at a freshly revived airplane with thirteen years of slumber in her veins, having Commander aboard wasn't a luxury; it was the only reason this tour had a prayer of completing. He stepped in, wrenches in hand, diagnosed the failure, tore into the panel, and got us patched up and airworthy.
PS - if you need a vintage aircraft mechanic - this is your guy. He even does mobile service - check out Maruader Air.
An hour later, we had lift. That feeling never ceases to amaze me. The moment when you know you've left the world behind, it's a mix of sheer amazement, belly-rippling joy and also a sense that now, there's no turning back - not without working for it.
That takeoff marked the official commencement of something that had never been attempted in publishing history: the first-ever transcontinental aeronautical book tour.
Over the weeks that followed, flying thousands of nautical miles across the country, the mission was simple on paper: take an unconventional message of emotional healing and human resilience directly to the people. But looking back from 365 days away, I realize that what began as an ambitious aerial tour evolved into a masterclass in raw grit, surrender, connection, and radical personal reinvention.
IFR - I Fly Roads
Good thing I packed my Sperry's because those old-NEW shoes were now a bad omen, so they would remain grounded. Flying an old airplane often means following the highways at speeds only slightly faster than the cars below, cutting off corners wherever you can.
I jogged Interstate 80 wondering if my epic adventure was as ballsy (or stupid)- as the Donner party - when Scarlett decided to vapor lock over the jagged peaks of Truckee.
It wasn’t the first time she’d done it, she did it a few days before when I was over the Coastal Mountain Range.
Let me share what vapor lock is in my most mechanicky- technical terms...
It’s like trying to suck BOBA through a straw.
AKA Scarlett wasn’t getting enough fuel to keep the engine running.
I should also explain that having grown up flying in the Sierra Nevadas, I am well aware that this particular area is known as an aviation Bermuda triangle…essentially aircraft go down into the Desolation Wilderness where the pines and granite slabs consume them for dinner and they are never recovered.
With limited options, I stayed glued to the highway hoping that if she quit for good it’d be on a “straight stretch,” and embracing the long downhill glide into Reno. I opted to skip on my first stop in Truckee and made an unscheduled emergency descent into Stead, Nevada, home turf of the Reno Air Races.
It felt like cosmic irony. Here we were, attempting an aerial feat of our own, grounded right where hot-rodders and aviation legends have spent generations pushing engines to the brink.
Commander hopped out and worked his magic once again. Fuel lines were purged, and we were back in the air. At this point I did not trust Scarlett a bit. I started whispering pleasantries like “c’mon girl, you’re a good girl, you’re doing so good.” Hoping that a combination of affirmations and the fuel purge fixed whatever it was- for good - it didn’t - more on that later.
The weather was nipping my heels like a cattle dog on a ranch- at 110mph I was barely keeping ahead of it. We were doing pretty well until we hit a squall line near Winnemucca. I needed fuel, and the only usable runway was serving up a 24-knot crosswind.
Now, I have to insert here: while Commander is a 35,000-hour bush pilot and CFII, he made it abundantly clear in no uncertain terms that he would not be assisting me with the flying part of this tour. He was there strictly for mechanics-
Just call me Queen Turd of Crap Island, because this was shit show was all mine and he was simply there to make sure I didn’t die…
alone 🫣
I have never seen Commander so thoroughly uncomfortable as when I set Scarlett down in that immense Winnemucca crosswind, dancing on the pedals and damn near running out of rudder authority to keep her from pile-driving the desert.
He was yelling something at me, but I yelled louder “I got it, I got it.”
I narrowly managed to keep her tires on the pavement. Scarlett doesn’t do “greasers” she simply does arrivals. Kinda like dropping a gecko on a bathtub. She just splats, with a big “ploosh” and then the force of her energy and that 44’ wing span is kinda like driving a flat cart at Costco full of food you don’t really need around a corner.
I cut the mags.
Commander was wielding a metal fuel hose some 10’ in the air, and hollering something about hurrying up to pee so we could outrun the weather, but I couldn’t quite hear him over the crackle of lightning and thunder claps.
“Get DOWN I yelled- you’re gonna get struck by lightning!”
A lady named Sarah came sprinting out of the FBO holding an umbrella just as the sky tore open. I tucked with her under the umbrella -which was as effective as holding a napkin over my head - as we sloshed into the FBO.
Twenty minutes later I could feel Commander staring at the back of my head...I was munching on a Tootsie Roll I’d stolen from the Goody Bags I'd made to give people at each stop, in absolutely no rush crawl back into the airplane. I was humming a song my dad always used to sing, "You gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em."
He wanted me to rise up to a Bush Pilot challenge, throttle up, and outrun the rest of the front, but he knew better than to pressure me, this was my shit show after all. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and watched the storm unleash its fury across the basin.
Thankfully, one of us has a survival instinct in tact, and alas, we spent far longer grounded in Winnemucca than either of us probably would have liked.
By the time the weather finally cleared enough to slip out, my phone started lighting up with text messages, the nation was rocked, Charlie Kirk had been shot.
Our schedule was completely shattered. Our original destination was out of reach for the day. I have a 3 strikes policy - if 3 things go "wrong" I stop flying for the day. I deliberated whether an assaination counted as the third strike, but felt even more compelled to go LIVE.
In my therapy office, I've heard thousands of hours of life stories, the ones that hit me the hardest are those who face immense regret, especially at the tail end of life or faced with a terminal diagnosis. They wish they'd just repaired the relationship, found more peace, let go of angst, done that thing they always wanted to do.
So I climbed into the cockpit, the special place I GET to be (not have to be) and flew my ass off. That night I opted to put Scarlett's wheels down in Pocatello, Idaho.
Even after all the diversions and blown timelines, I was floored to find social media friends had made the trek from our original stop by car just to say hello and welcome us in.
The Meal in Idaho: Why the Hard Roads Matter
I will never forget that first night in Idaho- and a big thank you to David for picking us up and taking us to dinner.
Something they don’t tell you about radials, the fine mist of engine grease acts like mousse in the hands of a 10 year old. My hair was nappy, my clothes reeked of low lead.
My nervous system was fried from surviving a taxiway breakdown, a high-altitude vapor lock over the jagged Sierras, a white-knuckle crosswind landing, and the heavy psychological weight of being determined to prove the naysayers wrong and get this book across the country.
We found a table at a local spot, sat down, and ate.
To this day, I swear it was one of the single best meals of my entire life. Every flavor was heightened, every bite felt like a small miracle.
Sometimes I sit back and wonder: was the food actually that extraordinary? Or was it the sheer, intoxicating relief of having looked a mountain of defeat in the eye and refused to back down? When you are pushed to the very edge of physical and mental exhaustion, when you conquer mechanical failure, mountain passes, and desert storms - even a simple meal tastes like grace.
Maybe the food was just that good. Or maybe I just need to fly back to Pocatello and find out.
The People and the Runways
Across the thousands of miles that followed, the physical toll became stronger every time the wheels touched down, but so did my emotional resilience.
What made the journey unforgettable wasn't just the nautical miles I'd clocked in an 80 year old airplane; it was the extraordinary tapestry of people and places that greeted us:
- A stop at the National Aviation Hall of Fame, where I stood humbled in the presence of the best of the best.
- A warm welcome and breathtaking sky view from the Teterboro, New Jersey control tower, complete with ATC cheering us on over the radios.
- Meeting a man with no hand in the Ozarks whose spirit, quiet strength, and presence left an indelible mark on my heart, and a pretty cool piece of art in my travel logbook.
- And so much more- from open hangars smelling of avgas to folding chairs where absolute strangers sat down and shared their deepest truths.
The True Architecture of Resilience
We love to romanticize resilience as a rigid, impenetrable armor. But aviation teaches you the exact opposite: rigidity destroys an airframe - you must have a willingness to abandon your Plan A and divert to Plan B, after all life is about the journey and not the destination (or some crap people who have no goals say).
Resilience is not pretending that oil dripping on your shoes doesn't make you want to throw your hands up, or that an emergency descent toward Reno playing dodgeball with jumbo jets doesn't spike your pulse. Resilience is having the backbone to sit in a cockpit with a 35,000-hour pilot, watch the lightning flash, and have the courage to say,
"We wait."
Forever Altered
People ask me all the time if that journey changed my life.
The honest answer is that the book tour was the end of the beginning - and the beginning of the end in redefining who I am and who I will become. Like most books I’ve written, they were to help me before they would ever help anyone else.
Taking those deeply personal concepts into the cockpit, facing relentless mechanical and environmental resistance, and delivering the message directly onto the airports of America tore down every remaining wall of self-doubt.
It proved that you cannot help someone navigate through the clouds if you are terrified of a little turbulence yourself, and turbulence is the thing that builds our character, defines who we become.
It humbled my pride, softened my heart, and permanently anchored my belief in the boundless courage of everyday people.
Join me for the next 12 days as we recap this wild, beautiful, unforgettable flight together.
If you’d like to grab your own copy of the book that started this entire flight, it is available now on Amazon, Target, and at airport bookstores throughout the nation.
https://a.co/d/0hKhhcyq
