Early Start, Early Finish

In response to the brutal heat and humidity out here, I got up at about 4:45am to get myself packed, fed, and on the road at about 6:30am (sunrise).  I cranked out about 54 miles before stopping in Royston, GA, for a bite to eat at Subway, where the clerks genuinely thought I was out of my mind when I told them where I had started for the day (Monroe, GA).  They haven't heard of bicycle touring in general.  They didn't know people rode more than a mile unless they were in the Tour de France or something.

Before getting there, I had to go through Athens, GA.  I've biked in a lot of different places (if you include my last trip out to Idaho), but I haven't been to very many places as hilly as the city of Athens.  Maybe my GPS is just trying to kill me and took me on the worst streets possible, but I think biking through Athens took me just as long as it took me to bike to Athens from Monroe.  I wish I had reset the data on my GPS, because it would be interesting to see what kinds of speeds I hit coming through that town.  I could have gotten a speeding ticket on some of those hills.  Then there's the obvious down side, if you go down, you have to come back up again.  I refused to shift into my lowest gear, but I probably could have used it.  When I was in Americus I boxed up some of my gear that I didn't think I would need for a while and sent it ahead to my sister Tiffany in DC, and after those hills in Athens, it's tempting to make another cut-back.

Anyway, after Athens and the Subway in Royston, I pedaled to Hart State Park, right on the Georgia side of the Georgia/South Carolina line.  I picked out a campsite and was done for the day by 1:00pm.  I set up the basics of my camp, then went to find a cold showers with my laundry.  I didn't want to bike back to town to find a laundromat, so I did my own in the shower.  Now it's hanging all over my camp site.  I have a hammock that packs down very small that my friend Travis gave me, so I hooked that up and had a short nap already, and now it's doubling as a clothes line.  I opened up my computer to just type something for the day and save it until I got internet access, but apparently the marina across the way has a pretty powerful router, so I'm online at a picnic table overlooking the lake. There are a couple of ducks about 30 feet away enjoying the shoreline.  Soon I'll probably make a big pot of refried beans and rice, and probably compliment the meal with some beef jerky and some dehydrated applesauce.  Sounds like a meal, eh?