Sunday I slept really great last night with a good campsite and a pillow. Woke at dawn and left fairly early and felt good. I decided my stretch goal for the day was to make it to the Tombigbee national forest. A big day to be sure but at 150 or so miles, doable. I needed to just relax and prepare to settle in at an all day pace. The first bit was curvy and hilly gravel passing a few houses but mostly private forest. After not too long I popped out to a fast flat highway and made my way towards Eutaw, the first town and store stop of the day. The highway miles were really fast and made me think I might just be able to make my goal. Wind wasn't much of an issue and I felt great. It was already hot and humid by 9am. I fueled up quickly and continued on more fast flat highways. Crossed more big bridges over huge rivers and made a short little lap around the old town of Gainesville and skipped the store there to wait on the next one. I left the highways in favor of some small roads and found myself on a dirt road that had deep dried ruts. And staring ahead towards the west in my path was a really big storm. I went down the road about a mile and found a private gate. I was actually pretty happy as I didn't have to decide whether or not to go down it and get rained on while dealing with peanut butter mud. Thankfully I had service so I checked the radar and it was an enormous storm. I decided to detour to the south of it to try and go around it and it actually worked. I had to go a couple miles south to find a road that went to Mississippi and then took a small road on the map that led in the direction I needed to go. It was a long straight gravel road of more than 6 miles with quite loose river rock gravel. This is the Mississippi I remember! I prepared a pavement reroute in my head and put on my radar in case it began pouring. But it never rained on me although the temperature went down s good bit. I worked my way to the little town of Shuquilak(sp?) and stopped there for a cold soda and a snack. Continued on some nice windy gravel and began making my way southwest toward the Nanih Waiyah mound. Walked up on top and made a quick circuit to take in the view and got going. I was definitely feeling tired by this point but felt like pushing and was definitely motivated by the national forest's embrace. Thankfully the roads were easy and mostly pretty flat so I was making decent time. I stopped for the final time in Louisville at a little supermarket. Thought I only had 5 or so miles to camp but it turned out to be several miles more. I'm glad I did as it's great to be on public land again. I'm camped near the trailhead for the Noxubee hills trails. Doesn't say no camping and obviously I'm not the only one to have camped here. As I sit here after cooking a meal and watching the fireflies, I watched lightning on the horizon quicken with intensity until seemingly fading away and then later without any warning it began to lightly rain and then rain hard. Glad it happened after I had already gotten everything situated. Just a quick install of the rain cover.