I found a good library for this.
It's called SoftwareSerialWithHalfDuplex. Seems to work pretty well.
Alternatively, I'm thinking maybe I could have just tied together the UART RX and TX and set the TX pin to input mode most of the time, but I don't know if I can do that.
Hey there,
I wrote that library...well, mostly just adapted the SoftwareSerial library. Anyways, all it does is what you suggest in your alternative.
Cheers