Day 17 - I'm going to lower the Baller Bus roof now

November 19th, 2018

After a snowy run through the forest we knew it was time to leave. Ruth made us waffles in the morning! We could not express enough how grateful we were for everything. We departed, clean and happy, unaware of the "fun" day of driving ahead.

Our offline maps worked great until we came upon a very low bridge, that would have given the bus a skylight! We pulled over and discussed our plans. After which we asked a friendlyfriendly local officer about the route we should take to get to New York City. He was enthusiastic about the bus and happily told us where to go, and how New York roads are ridiculous, which we soon found was true.

New York city! Reading online it says it is "not for amateur drivers"! Good thing we have amassed lots of experience over the last 2 weeks... Cortisol levels were running high! Our first problem was that we couldn't drive on any of the parkways (main highways entering city) due to height limitations of bridges less then 11 feet (we are over 12). After winding our way through a network of small roads we finally got close to our Walmart "campsite". Then it happend, we came upon a 10'10"clearance bridge. So we stopped on the road, what else were we to do? Since there was no way we could go forward or turn right down the one way beside us we discussed our options. We thought we could risk it, which I was heavily voting against or backup a block in to incoming traffic. We saw bus after bus drive by, wondering how they didn't hit anything. So, we eventually made our way forward at a crawl. If I was going to hit the bridge it was going to be gracefully. Eventually we made it under with the external guidance of Sam on the sidewalk, flabbergasted how off the sign was. After this experience, every bridge was nerve racking - slightly expecting a sudden stopping. To our relief and surprise

we made it without a scratch.