Rolled out the door early as planned and took 74 south again because it was so early. Made it through Senoia and to Haralson in the dark all alone, and then rejoined the highway. I already knew my front hub bearings were dead and making a ticking sound, which was annoying enough. But somewhere around Imlac my rear hub bearings decided to implode and make 10 times the noise of the front ones. It was still dark and I was quite frustrated that I would have to listen to all that clanging around for the rest of the ride. So I was a little down here. Considered for half a millisecond cutting the ride short but decided that that was silly and I my mood would improve later on. Soon after I decided to take an unplanned exploratory detour on a parallel road beside the highway. I've passed the stop signs at both ends and assumed that it was abandoned and too overgrown or blocked. But I found it perfectly passable although I had to ride through very tall grass. There was a creek in the middle and I expected there to be no bridge or culvert. But surprisingly there was a bridge! Unclear if it passed proper inspection but in any case it took me and my bike just fine. I had a few cars pass me but not all that many on the ride in to Woodbury on the highway, where I turned off and headed off to go through the Cove. This area is lovely and I got to ride through just as sunrise was washing over the hills. Although it was cloudy so it was very diffused light for all morning. It was very quiet all the way down to Talbotton where I found the road bypassing the closed railroad bridge easily and in good shape. Looked like it had always been there, perhaps it was a sewer cut road because it led to the sewer treatment plant on the road I came in on. I half considered going ahead and stopping for insurance liquids here because I had planned initially to stop around mile 85 in Mauk. I decided I would be fine, the morning was cool and still cloudy. So I rode out of town and on began the solitude of the gravel and dirt roads south of Talbotton. It was really great to feel so out there in the country, away from civilization. Almost no farms as well. Mostly trees with the occasional isolated barn in the forest. Soon I came to the fall line sand hills and abruptly came across HWY 96, the Fall Line Freeway(not limited access, just a fancy name). I crossed over and into a small parking lot for the archery area of Chattahoochee Fall Line WMA. No one was there, and in late May there wasn't any hunting in season, so I had little worry that my trip through would be no problem. I continued on a road, although officially all the tracks in the archery area are paths in this WMA and officially closed to bikes, but the signs don't even mention bikes at all, so my strategy is to feign ignorance if accosted. I've never been approached though(except that one time in the Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge but that was a fed whereas this is state managed). The forest was often burned and open longleaf pine, and the road was sandy but since it wasn't getting a lot of traffic and it was a bit damp it rode just fine. In addition it had some gravel in the really sandy parts, and this picked up the further south I went. I had to ford Black Creek and it wasn't a bad ford just deeper that I would have liked so I looked upstream for a narrow crossing, gave up and just rode through the creek anyway. The chain got wet as did my shoes but my feet stayed dry. The way out of the WMA included more rule breaking as I had to ride through the handicapped area(also technically off limits to bikes but that's really silly considering disabled people can drive there). No issues cutting through here as well and soon I was on a county dirt road. Basically all the roads were dirt from here till I got north of the fall line again. Gradually I moved away from the sand and got into more clay which made the going easier. Lots of very eroded hillside road cuts. Right after a short ride on US 19 south I turned onto a paved road that said it was closed. I continued on expecting a bridge out situation, and that's what I got, the were in the process of replacing an old bridge. I crossed on the large I beam the workers had placed over the creek and hauled me and the bike up the berm and back onto the pavement. It seems like I can't do a double century without encountering at least one closed bridge. At least this one didn't involve bushwacking. Further up the road the primitive church the road was named after delivered on a nice well that was unlocked. I turned the valve and opened the faucet, let it run for awhile to clear up the cloudy water, and filled a bottle here to ensure I could make it to Mauk. I got stopped by a fast moving CSX train near Rupert so I didn't have to wait long. Not too long after this I saw a fox squirrel and then right after he crossed my path I saw a black squirrel, something I had never seen in the US. The only other time was one in a park in Calgary Alberta. He dashed up an oak tree and I tried to snap a photo but he was on the other side of the trunk. Somewhere in Taylor county on a random dirt road I ran across a huge mill pond and the old mill still standing right beside it. It even had all the old machinery(save the water wheel). It was nailed shut preventing any exploration. What was amazing to me was that the height of the road was several feet above the bottom floor of the building, indicating to me erosion from the hills down had raised the level of the road. Looking at the old USGS topo map it's called Suggs mill. I jumped on US 19, crossed the Flint River and rode almost all the way to Thomaston. I stopped at Antioch Baptist church on the highway and found good faucet water which saved me from running out or having to filter. I was able to rehydrate on the rest of the ride in to town which included some rare Upson county gravel and lots of hills. I stopped for the second store at a pretty new looking Dollar General south of Thomaston, filled up more than I think I would need(I always need more than I think at the end of long rides) despite only having a measly 50 miles left. Found Hannah's mill road pleasantly as deserted as before due to the bridge closure, and the large pack of hot dogs in the road still utterly untouched by wildlife weeks later. Did a couple new Pike county gravel roads which were truly excellent, and experienced very quiet lonely roads through Concord and the rest of the way up to Fayette. I tired gradually as I got closer but I think I paced really well on this ride, and it was actually pretty fast overall, especially considering how much dirt and gravel I had. A lot of the good time was due to a decent stopped time, I only stopped twice and didn't have to take a #2 nature break. The weather was excellent, cloudy enough that I didn't bother putting on sunscreen until early afternoon(only on my face and neck), and it wasn't too hot. Wind was very light, and ended up being mostly from the south on the way back even though the forecast that morning was for a crosswind from the west.