Can anyone tell me where I can find long wooden dowels? The only ones the local places carry are 12" and my next cake is sure to be about 16 inches high.. help!

Each tier is dowelled separately, the common height of a tier being approximately 4".

Are you looking for a 16" center dowel?

Common cake construction methods:

http://tinyurl.com/y22z72
(Has complete and accurate directions.)

HTH

I have seen very long "dowels" not sure that they are cake dowels but the very same thing in home depot in their lumber area. they are all different sizes in diameter, some are the same exact diameter as 'cake dowels' except they sell them very long (10 feet). I have seen also this same dowels in hobby lobby

I got them in home depot- thanks so much for the help!