The adventures of our book tour continue… and as I try to drive, write, speak, and feed everyone in our little entourage, I find myself exhausted each day as my head hits the pillow and I think, “Man, I need to blog!”

Thanks to the wonderful people at Pulse Point Designs, we have this incredible new website – Kim (that’d be me) just needs to learn said website and keep up. 🙂 I do appreciate everyone and your encouragement and great emails about how much you love it – we do too!! I promise, I’ll do better. Really, I do. If I can just get to a place that has fast WiFi, I’ll be doing good. (I’ve done enough typing on my iPhone to know that I stink at it!)

Anyway, last time, I told you about our “suspicious” police report and how we were thought to be book smugglers. And about our slide that had “issues” – Pikes Peak Traveland went above and beyond the call of duty and bought a part for us on the road and then called a mobile service guy to come to one of our events and fix it! I’m thankful to say that Ernie (Yes, the fifth wheel has been renamed – that’s another story) is well and has been a magnificent haven for us. I’m still amazed at how God provides every step of the way.

Well, this post involves the state troopers. Yes, that was plural. More than one. This is me, remember?

We’ve had great events all over the country, but this particular story takes place after a fun weekend in Attica, NY with the people at First Baptist Church and some wonderful family there. On a Monday, we headed to Amherst Christian Academy. What an amazing group of kids there! We had a great morning of chapels with the students and decided we had time to see Niagara Falls while we were in the area. We asked around and received directions from a local (I wanted to avoid any mishaps with my extremely long fifth wheel  – and asked about clearance on roads etc.) LOL – No matter how hard I try to prepare – I can’t seem to avoid craziness.

This is where the fun began:

Almost to our destination, we crossed the Niagara River and took our exit to Niagara Falls. We were all excited – It was cold outside – perfect for Kayla to be able to see the falls and walk around. I drove around the exit ramp to go under the bridge toward the Falls.

Then I stopped. All 55 – feet of me.

In the middle of the road. A limited-access-highway-kind-of-road.

Why? You ask? Because a nice little yellow sign on that bridge said, ” 12′ 0″ ”  And guess what? My rig is 13 feet tall.

I sat there – in the middle of the road – staring at that sign. Flashed my hazards, waved people on, and stared. Long and hard.

I said things like, “I cannot believe this.” and “I have no idea what to do…”

Several moments passed and then a construction worker appeared on the other side of the road. Lori jumped out of the truck and navigated across traffic and asked for his help. He came over and graciously offered to do what he could.

He called the state troopers.

I wanted to bang my head on the steering wheel. Because seriously, how many times can Kim encounter the police on this book tour?

Don’t answer that.

The state troopers arrived and asked me if I saw the sign. I answered, “Um, yes, I stopped.” The construction worker laughed and said, “most of the truckers just ram right into it.” (Oh, well, that makes me feel better!)

Anyway, to make a long story shorter, the state trooper had to call in more state troopers to direct traffic- or I should say, to stop traffic. They wanted me to back up and then shimmy my way over to the far left lane and see if I could clear it. I blinked several times. The sign clearly said that bridge was 12 feet. Josh and I measured “Ernie” – our fifth wheel – after we were loaded and hooked up because I wanted to know for sure EXACTLY how tall we were. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that 12 feet did not equal 13 feet. But the state trooper assured me the bridge was higher on that side.

I was skeptical. I think they realized that I didn’t quite trust them.

They were very kind. Tried to assure me they would stop me if I got too close. Tried to comfort me by saying, “this happens all the time.” and “at least you stopped.”

Ugh. At this point, I realized there wasn’t much of a choice. I had to trust other people to watch for me and make sure I didn’t hit or scrape our very large – very-brand-new – home on wheels on the bridge over the Niagara. Nowhere to go but forward.

 They asked the construction worker to watch for clearance at the top, and stopped all the traffic.

I backed up a good ways and inched my way over to the other side of the road. The state trooper encouraged me to go faster.

I shook my head.

Traffic backed up.

The construction worker made some worried faces but kept waving me forward. And the next 60 seconds were excruciating as I inched Bert and Ernie under all three overpasses that made up the bridge over the Niagara.

We made it. Barely. I hope the state troopers and construction worker know how much I appreciate them.

On the way back – I went a different way. Imagine that.

We’ve got many more stories and pictures to come. Be watching for a book tour photo gallery 🙂 Kayla said she will blog next – I’ll probably be driving… the long way around wherever we are going to avoid any bridges 🙂

Until next time…