I left for this ride as early as I reasonably could, which turned out to be a little after 2am. This set me up to ride through metro Atlanta on straight, fast roads with little to no traffic. Trip through Fayetteville and on to Clayton county was deserted for the most part. But on US 19-41, there was something going down, and there were countless police cars blocking the highway. The sensible detour would have been to our right but the cop was shunting us to the left. This led to a subdivision that went nowhere so I turned around and took a right on the highway. I go down a bit so I can eventually take a left onto Fayetteville street. The highway wasn't blocked at all from the north. So traffic was streaming in. I had to stop at a little driveway to wait for a break in traffic to get over to the left lane. I found one, or so I thought. I crept forward and at the last second I saw a white minivan without its lights on. Right after one of the dozens of cop cars got on its tail and turned on the lights. I don't think they pulled them over, but they made sure their lights were on. So I detoured through Jonesboro and tried several times to get back to the highway but each time it was blocked by a gaggle of police cars. In total there must have been over a hundred. Just insane. Eventually I found some sort of big road that marked the end of the roadblock and got back going north again. Traffic was very light and most of the time through Atlanta there was none. It was weird to ride through past places where people were near the end of their night whereas it was morning for me. As I got further away from the city and past all the internationally influenced restaurants on Buford highway, the traffic got more and sparse as time went on, which is the opposite of what I would have thought. Still though it was early and I finally turned off the highway a little after 6am in Duluth. I followed a combination of subdivision roads, three lane collector roads and a couple divided four lane industrial park type roads. These were all pretty deserted. I stopped for the first time at a Kroger around mile 78 or so and loaded up on supplies because the next stop was in like 60 miles and through the typical doldrums of 100-130 miles in. I had actually drank all three liters of the water I started with so I bought a whole gallon(much cheaper than any amount less, it's annoying) and filled a platypus bottle to put in my back pocket. Soon enough I was on quiet roads for good, and enjoyed some nice gravel roads for the first time in the ride. Still close to I-85 and well within the warehouse bonanza zone of Atlanta, the sense I had is that the area would look a lot different in a few years. Everywhere I went there were recently surveyed property markers and grading equipment. Houses swallowed up by kudzu and about to be demolished for another warehouse. Some of these were on gravel roads which will look a lot different soon. Still though it was rural with pastures, chicken houses everywhere, and processing plants. These land uses make for decent riding and I was glad to be away from the city. I encountered on more than one occasion on this ride, signs warning of a closed bridge ahead. Which triggers thoughts of traumas suffered crossing long ago abandoned bridges and bushwhacking through overgrown undergrowth. Thankfully though each time I encountered a crossable bridge for bikes that was simply not up to snuff for vehicles. I crossed the river to South Carolina without issue other than a bit of pesky traffic. I crossed here on another trip up to NC from GA around 15 years ago. It was much later in the day when I crossed and on a Sunday so I don't remember much traffic at all. Whereas on this ride I crossed in the middle of the day. I rode a couple nice gravel sections and stopped at a Dollar General outside Westminster to top everything off. Rode up to Walhalla which put me back in very familiar territory. I was careful to not declare victory here just yet because it felt close but all the difficult climbing was yet to begin. I felt really good, very well hydrated and I stayed on top of my eating better than usual. It definitely helped that the light east wind I had been battling with turned into a mostly south wind giving me a tailwind. So I made pretty good time to Salem where I stopped for the last time. I got way more supplies than necessary just in case I really had trouble with the last miles. Better to have and not need than need and not have. I rode a superb gravel road, Ridge road, to Whitewater Falls road which placed me at the foot of the blue ridge escarpment. I began the climb up on the highway and it was pretty gradual but I just settled in to a very easy slow pace. The traffic was more than I would have thought, and speedy. Nothing more frightening than climbing at 4mph and having 5 cars a foot from each other go by at 50-60mph. So I was ecstatic to turn off of this to head up the connector to highway 107. The traffic here was much improved which was great because the climb is much steeper. Once I crested the climb just past an overlook, I began to feel pretty good again. This initial climb into the mountains proper was still pretty warm and I was sore from all the miles so it was slow going. I ate a bit and drank a bunch more and was in very good spirits when I got to highway 107. Only a couple of miles brought me to Bull Pen road. I've ridden it many times and was really looking forward to complete solitude again. I only saw one car the whole trip down across the Chattooga river to Horse Cove. The sun set behind the mountains in front of me and I set to climbing back up to the continental divide on the hardest climb of the day out of the cove. I didn't have to save anything and I felt pretty good so I rode up decently hard and it grew so dark that I finally turned on my headlight. Highlands was still packed with people walking down the sidewalks and dining outside still at close to 9pm. I decided I didn't care to avoid 64 through town and just rode through. My trip downhill through the gorge at night was really fun. I know the descent really well but doing it in the dark is like a whole new experience. Overall I was very tired but still feeling really good at the end. But it definitely felt good to be done.