#271 Low Bridge, hit the gas

As we left James River I decided to take Hwy 60 because it looked like there was a way to get on 29 north reasonably soon. The big problem with highway 60 is it wiggled about all through the mountains. It looks like the quickest way but not good for big rigs. I talked to a guy that said he was scared to do it even on a Harley. I took the advice and I was going to get on 29 north as quickly as I could about five miles up the road.

Here is where my series of mistakes began.

1) The GPS said take a right here and I did. It was a small two-lane probably a logging road with no shoulder. I say logging because there was a lot of clear-cut around.

2) I saw a yellow sign about a mile or so in that said 11-foot 9 in. I asked India I said is it possible that they just mean that the lane is 11 ft 9 wide?

3) I saw the 11 ft 9 sign had arrows pointing up and down. Why would that reflect how wide the lanes are?

4) There is no sanity for what I did next and I'm ashamed of it. A while back I remember measuring from the top of my AC unit to the ground. It was a little over 12 ft but I rounded it up to 12 ft 6. I just figured when they said 11ft 9, they probably meant 12ish. Believe me, they meant 11-9.

This is the part where you approach the bridge and get close and get out and get up on the ladder and look and see if you're going to make it or not. If it's not going to work you back up for a maybe a long way and yes it would have been hard but so be it.

At this point, there are so many right things that you do and I did none of them.

5) What I thought is it was going to be one of those eighth of an inch clearance things. As I got near I didn’t stop and get out or even slow down. I thought I’ll s just going to hit the gas and RAM it on through and scrape a little paint off the plastic of my AC unit and be none the worse. My battle charge was, Low bridge, hit the gas. When we were fully under the bridge, I could tell that we were scrubbing and I gave it more gas. Nothing happened and now we're officially stuck under the bridge.

Well now I felt like an idiot and I still feel like an idiot now. I got out and looked and we were hung up. Some nice people decided to come out and look at us and shake their heads in dismay. Soon there was a school bus behind me and I didn't know quite what to do. I might be here for a while and I can only wonder how she’s going to get to her school kids. She said she might call the County maintenance guy that works on school buses to give me a hand. He showed up pretty quickly.

I went back and told her I didn't know what I was going to do but I will try to hurry and she said don't worry about it.

I said something to one of those guys that walked up from the neighborhood to see what was happening. He said well you ain't the first but that didn’t make me feel much better. He said maybe let the air out of the tires and I agreed that that might be the only way. If we did it would probably lower us maybe four to six inches and that might be all it takes.

I began to lower the air out of the tires down to about the rims and about this time the county guy came along. I apologized for shutting down the highway and he was nice about it. I said should I call a tow truck? He said if you call a tow truck they’re going to call the cops. If we can get you out of here that would be better. What a nice guy, and also that's cool.

With the air out of the tires, I was able to move forward a foot. I said well if you'd be willing to give me a little tug I would appreciate it. He said ok and I was beyond thankful. Everybody usually gets into a priss about liability and all how that would be against protocol and all. This guy just gave me a little tug with my purple strap and I just came right on out of there and I pulled over to the right. He helped me fill my tires with his big old air compressor because the one I have was going to go pretty slowly. He did mention if I hadn’t taken that quick right turn off hwy 60 I would have connected with 29 north in less than 2 miles with no bridges.

Now I'm on the side of the road and I'm out from under the bridge. I'm airing up my tires and I've gone from complete despair to giddy. I opened the camper door to look inside to see if there was any internal damage and to comfort our cat, Bert. It was a disaster inside and Bert was shaken but unharmed physically. Now I have to get out of here before any police come by. I went forward a mile or so and took a right on 29 north and looked for a place to pull over. I saw a gravel lot and parked. Of course, I apologized to India a hundred times for what I had done. She seemed to be able to accept it goes along with knowing me.

Here's the part where you go back and you say well it's probably not going to be pretty but how bad is it. I climbed up the RV ladder and the air conditioner up front was pushed down about flat with the roof. I opened the door and the wall where the TV is mounted was pushed forward into a sideways V shape 2 feet. The air conditioner and ceiling had been pushed down into the bedroom.

The bathroom was destroyed. The whole RV ceiling was completely crushed in from the refrigerator to the rear bedroom. The RV is 36 ft long and the ceiling was pushed down a foot for 25 of these.

I had no choice but to go into damage control mode in that no matter what I had planned, none of that's going to happen now and what to do next to keep the ship from sinking. I looked at the weather and there was a chance of rain. I needed to do whatever it takes to try to make some initial repairs in case it rains.

I'm going to need to do is find a place to RV camp while I go to Lowe's or something and get a tarp.

I looked around and it wasn't easy to find a campground but there was a KOA in Charlottesville. I knew I needed to find a campground that was close enough to a Home Depot or Lowe's to get some materials

The KOA only had one night available it was a little pricey but it didn't matter because we needed to get the basic damage control done. We could sleep a little bit and God bless India for not killing me or giving up on me but what a day.

I would end up feeling guilty from that day for years to come. Anytime I get arrogant with India now and say you don't know what you're talking about she just stops me and says bridge. That means you're so stupid that you destroyed an RV at a bridge so how can you call anybody else stupid ever again.

I certainly hope this is the last stupid thing I do, I mean at least at this level.

I checked in at the KOA and got the RV, India, and the cat settled. I went to the Charlottesville Lowe's and bought some 2x3’s, some joist hangers, plenty of screws, plastic, and a tarp. I began using a hydraulic jack to raise the bedroom ceiling structure enough to where I could screw in joist hangers and install a few of the 2x3’s to ensure it was safe enough to not fall in on us. Today’s efforts would be minimal just to allow us to sleep. With some basic cleanup, I could call it a day, what a day. I decided to continue our foliage trip as if nothing had happened. Our next stop would be Bolar mountain. Each day I would try to persuade the ceiling system back into place using hydraulic forces to where they were before.

Insurance?

About 2 months before this I had decided I didn’t want to continue with collision insurance on the RV. I canceled the policy and yet I remember the insurance company wanted us to print out a form sign it and mail it back to them. I never got around to doing that.

Knowing I had canceled the policy, there was no reason to file a claim. I started doing the basic repairs out of necessity as this is our home now.

One afternoon the phone rang and I was reminded the billing was past due on our RV collision policy. It seems to forget to mail in that form saved my skin. State Farm told me that I was fully covered and we created a claim number.

I had already psyched myself out to just take care of it myself. If I take it to a shop and get a quote it's going to be kind of expensive.

State Farm said they didn’t have a preferred vendor so if I get them an estimate, they would take care of it. This was an unexpected good outcome to a bad day. I knew in the weeks to come I would be in Winston Salem so I chose a shop there to start a claim. I had some good dealings with a company called Bill Plemons in Raliegh they had another branch near Winston. I sent them a PDF with all the damaged pictures and for a reasonable fee, they would give me a written estimate to send to the state farm.

When we finish our fall tour I had agreed to act as a butler for my little sister on who's having foot surgery. After a few days, he started realizing he would not be doing any repairs for us. He said he would write it up but he could tell they were going to consider it a total loss. He said the repairs would be 15 thousand or more. All I could say is wow.