The goal of this ride was to ride a lot of hard to get tiles, all at once. Most were ones that just required riding a specific dead end road, but since I was there, why not ride all the ones nearby that I never had before? In addition it meant I had to ride around in a weird loop back and forth because even though they were close, it's not like there was a road connecting them in a lot of places. So the loop never really went anywhere hardly, not even down to LaGrange. Just a lot of bumbling around what I think of as my local area. I decided to ride my old gravel bike, aka my cross bike, aka my commuter, for old times sake. It did really well, although it's not as comfortable as my proper gravel bike, and i missed the low gearing. I was able to bang out a decent amount before the sun rose. We had a lot of rain this week and the forecast was initially for a decent chance on this day, but the sun was out almost the entire day. There was fog and clouds early but they burned off only a couple hours after sunrise. The worst section by far was when I was on highway 54 for like 3.5 miles in south Coweta just before 8am. I apparently didn't glance at that part of the route, as there is a great alternative that's basically the same distance. Most of the traffic was going north but I definitely had to get off a couple of times to avoid a close passing. The next highway 27 section was much shorter and broken up by dead end roads, was much more tolerable. I was really ready for a stop when I got to Grantville. I filled up bottles at the operational drinking fountain at the city park, and was promptly stopped by a really fast moving CSX intermodal train. A guy from the coffee shop next to me came out and asked me about my ride. I tried to explain as best I could without getting too into the weeds of how weird it was. We had a good chat but had to yell almost because the train was absolutely flying past. I grabbed what I thought was plenty of snacks for the next 50 or so miles, and headed off west. The first hard to get tile that didn't have a public road was by the interstate. It was a combination residential gravel road and service road for a cell tower. It did have a name and a stop sign and all that, and was public for the first bit. But it also had a clearly marked gate with no tresspassing signs all over. But it was open and there was nobody around(and the interstate noise drowned out all possible noise I could make), so i just cruised down a bit till I was sure I had the tile and left, the whole buisness taking less than a couple minutes. I had to go by a trailer's driveway but nobody was outside. Then I made a big loop around Hogansville(where I was passed on HWY 100 by a guy piloting a weird jerry rigged lawnmower or kids motorcycle pulling a trailer with junk in it) and almost back to Grantville, did a super long dead end road off Coweta Heard to get a tile, all on public(and paved) road. Next I went through Corinth. First I stopped to take a photo of some flowers right at the end of a gravel road I wasn't taking, and suddenly a puppy came out of nowhere and was very interested in me. He had a collar(no tag though) but there wasn't a house nearby unless he ran pretty far. He didn't seem hungry or thirsty so maybe he was ok. He did chase me a bit after I left, but I passed two churches, one of which was getting a new roof and there were a lot of workers milling about so I figured he'd wander up to them and get out of the road. Next I saw a middle aged overweight man in jeans pushing a deparment store mountain bike, he said he was ok so I pressed on to head south on Hammett road. Already this was a lot of interesting things for such a hamlet, but then I saw a person in a camp chair beside the road. He was completely asleep. Next to him was a bike on its side attached to a trailer that had a lot of stuff on it. Extremely strange. Next dead end road I expected to deliver some super weird thing or other but it just went out a ways and dead ended without any fanfare(and only one driveway at the end). I always think I can get by with less water in the middle of the day than I can. I was down to my last bottle with still more than 20 miles to go to the next stop point, so I began to eye any churches I passed. I found one at the Spring Hill Baptist church which had a faucet with good cold water. I drank my fill, ate some snacks and filled everything to the brim. It was a good thing I did because not long after I had to a hard to get tile that involved hiking through the woods. Another one beside the interstate. I didn't really have to walk that far but it takes longer than you think to hike off trail in the woods in June. I tried to avoid touching anything that might have ticks or chiggers or poison ivy. As it happens this tile included going almost to the edge of the Interstate weigh station for trucks parking lot. On the way out as I left my bike, I watched a family of armadillos root around for food without any knowledge of my presence only a few feet away. After a bit of walking I was met with a rather tall chain link fence just before my destination as indicated on my GPS. so I walked around the perimiter and sure enough, at a culvert for a small creek that passed under the interstate, the fence was all collapsed and easy to walk over. I scrambled up the steep bank to the edge of the parking lot to ensure I could grab the tile for sure and retraced my steps. I actually had a bit of trouble going back exactly the same way and came out at a different place but I had no trouble finding my bike as I just retraced my tracks going in. Glad to have that over with I continued on and really looking forward to the next stop at Mountville. At length I finally pulled into the Dollar General annoyingly placed a mile west of Mountville itself(at the road for the landfill, probably the reason it was there). Sat for a minute under a huge magnolia and ate a snack before leaving. Straight away only a few miles later I faced the hardest to get tile and the most sketchy from a public access perspective. I had doubts that even the ostensibly public road to get to the bushwack portion would be open. I could see it on the streetview and it had no stop sign and was gravel, definite red flags. But it was open if in really bad shape. This was Meriwether county after all. The whole thing was in danger of washing out I thought as I rode down it, and indeed a large culvert for a creek was completely washed away. Thankfully it wasn't that far down to ford it. The road continued on but wasn't that beaten down on the other side. In any case I need to hike. So I grabbed my GPS and continued on in the woods to follow the creek downstream. I had a relatively easy time making my way to the tile, passing a couple of empty deer stands and blinds. Definitely the reason i'm doing ones like this in summer(and even better on a weekday like today). After I got back to the bike I rode to the end of the road. It did have a gate not too much further but it was open so I rode on. I found a hunting camp of sorts and an old tractor with a mower attached. The road on the gps looked like it might have continued on to CH King road but it just forked where it was supposed to go straight and didn't look like it had ever gone that way in the past. I turned around to head back to the paved road. The wind was strong from the west and I was glad to be travelling east, and on some fast paved roads. I made really good time the next bit. I did end up stopping at the Rocky Mount store for a powerade and a coke which I figured was more than enough to get me home but was definitely not. I fought a crosswind going north and was pretty thirsty so I stopped at the faucet at the first baseball field at the Starrs Mill school complex. I had no issues riding the remaining miles home and actually felt good enough to ride pretty hard.