Blakely, Georgia- Eufaula, Alabama
We changed the route for today. Instead of riding to Omaha GA, we went to Eufaula instead. We didn’t see any reason to ride north to Omaha. And we thought the Eufaula Campground sounded like a nice one. I usually call ahead to make sure that we have “spot” because we’ve seen THAT channel before. When you are on a bicycle and you get to a campground that says they are “spots” we have a problem. It’s easy to drive somewhere but not so on a bike. So off we went to Eufaula Campground. The route for today was mostly flat, not much wind and sunny. Temps in the high 80’s. Not much traffic to speak of. Overall a nice ride. We stopped for lunch in Fort Gaines and ate some turkey and cheese wraps that I made from turkey left over from last night. We saw churches that had NO trespassing signs on them. That’s different. They were all closed up, hopefully they built a new church somewhere. Fort Gaines was founded in 1814 so that started a discussion about the song that goes something like “in 1814 we took a little trip along with Col Jackson down the mighty mississip”........ After that Hap sang the song the rest of the day. It was amazing that he knew most of the words. Or maybe that’s just sad! In Eufaula we had a little adventure trying to find the Piggly Wiggly in a lot of traffic. Finally we found it, got groceries and left. When pulled out into a busy road, I tried to check my mirror and realized I couldn’t see behind me! I panicked for a moment because I knew cars were coming. My mirror was missing. I can’t ride without a mirror, so we turned around and sure enough it was laying on the ground by the Piggly Wiggly. We rode a bike trail out to the campground. What we thought was a nice campground, was a disappointment. Oh well. We set up camp, did some laundry and ate stir fry that I made. Good stuff! A man and women walking by and asked the usual where you going, how far in a day etc. Hap asked him what he thought about taking down the Confederate statues. Well that started a huge discussion. We asked the right guy! He viewed the Confederate generals as traitors. Also, the Confederate flag was only flown by Gov Wallace. So he viewed the Confederate flag as a hate flag. Interesting discussion! We had a good nights sleep in our “condo”. I always sleep well in the condo!
Eufaula, AL - Auburn AL
We got up and went over to the Subway for a breakfast sandwich and coffee. This was a crazy day of riding. We are off the route we planned and using Google maps and the Etrex 20 GPS for routing. We started out on some nice, low traffic roads. And all of a sudden the nice rode turned into a hard packed dirt road. Then we discovered hidden sand pockets that the front wheels sunk into. I fell over three times trying to go forward. I decided if the front wheel started sliding to just let the bike fall and step off the bike. That technique seemed to work. I never actually fell. The bike survived the ordeal. We ended up on six miles of dirt, and sand before we got on a paved road. Then we got on a narrow two lane state highway that had no shoulders and had a few cars. We found another dirt side road and were debating about whether to ride on it. According to our GPS we would have about two miles of dirt. A man on a four wheeler rode up the road. We asked him and he said, oh no this road is EIGHT miles of dirt. NOPE not goin that way! Thank you!! We got back out on the paved highway, thinking the traffic wasn’t so bad. We stopped in Hurtsboro for lunch. The lunch stop was very busy. Everyone was so nice while we were waiting. Several asked where we were going. It’s fun sometimes to watch people’s expression when you say you are riding to Ohio. Everyone was pretty patient. We had a little trouble understanding the people talking. Between the different dialect and our hearing it was interesting! We met Robert outside. After the usual questions, he said we must be getting a lot of exercise. He told us his wife had just run her first 5k. He was thinking about whether he should do
one and of course we said yes! About 4:00 the traffic started to pick up. We were getting close to Auburn. Just before we got to Auburn we had a huge hill to climb (of course). While I was trying to climb it a white Mercedes car came zooming up behind me. I just saw it out of the corner of my mirror. Scared me and I ran off the edge of the road. Then she zoomed around us. Whew! We all made it. Just before getting to the motel, we saw a white Mercedes in an accident by the hotel. Noone was hurt thank goodness. But maybe a little blind justice?? We ended up riding a lot further than we anticipated but you’ll have that! To be continued............see part 2!
Church with no trespassing sign
Flat riding
Lake Eufaula
Lake Eufaula Campground
Breakfast at Subway
Uh oh.. how far can it be?
3 miles later........
Hey Hap can you see that blind sand?
Never mind...... oops x 3!
Five miles later
Hurtsboro AL lunch stop
How do you like shoulder with rumble strips?
Dinner
Ahhhhhhhh.. that’s better!
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