Didn't really bother leaving too early since I was only going to Lovejoy which isn't all that bad as long as you're coming through before mid day. The first area I explored was on the edge of Lovejoy, the Clayton County prison which is next to the landfill. Just a dead end road, and there was another road off of this that was not on the map despite it having a very old road sign. So I rode down this and took a picture of the sign. It led to a small cemetery that I presume might be where they bury dead prisoners that have nobody to claim them? Who knows. It was called Clayton County Memorial Gardens and was really tucked out of the way. Not an official funeral home one and not one associated with a church so kinda weird. By now the sun was up enough for it to be light so it wasn't too weird to be there. Nobody around though. I rode a lot of subdivisions in and around McDonough as quickly as I could but naturally my good pace that I had on the way there dropped considerably once I was starting and stopping and breaking momentum at the bottom of hills. It was barely 9am and the temperature was already really bad so I knew I was in for another long hot ride. No clouds in the sky and the kind of unbearable sticky humidity that Georgia is known for. Sucks that it's so late in September and it's still so hot. I rode down the main north south drag in McDonough and it was almost deserted which I found hilarious because it was divided into two one way lanes in each direction plus a parking lane that was mostly empty. Whereas every single other road leading into and out of McDonough is just a hellish bumper to bumper car train affair. So this ended shortly after I pulled off just after the square, and got back to heading east and then south. Got some water at a park and had to alter my route a bit because the parking lots that I was going to cut through were being used for the county fair so I had to use the busy road next to it. It was a lot of waiting but eventually I did find a good gap and it wasn't too bad in the end. Stopped for the first time at a Dollar General and didn't worry about really cramming with stuff since the next stop was in around 30 miles. Proceeded on south and stopped again in Jackson and despite the short distance between I was ready for another cold drink. These hot days are annoyingly hard. I know what to do in theory but it's still a challenge to drink and eat enough. Sometimes the only remedy is to actually stop and eat and drink in the shade. Thankfully the DG in Jackson(a DG market) had a nice shaded bench to sit on and eat a bag of chips. I rolled away feeling pretty good but still a bit miffed about the heat and glad to head into the forest to ride through Dauset. Dauset was a nice change of pace but then I had to get back on the road again and back into the sun. I began to look forward to my next stop which was also another short carry from the last one. The miles ticked away as I rode various dead end roads along the countryside. I headed down one that was a former connection dissolved by the construction of I-75, intending to turn around and head back after a photo of the GA 16 Griffin exit sign but when I got to the end, I found an SUV with its back hatch open. I crept closer and found a man just inside the edge of the forest near the car with some sort of long implement(10 feet or longer) and he was furiously stabbing at the crown of the treeline of some small trees. He was looking away and I was thinking maybe he wouldn't notice my presence. But just as I was within earshot he abruptly stopped messing with the pole and started looking at the ground and making like he was looking for something he dropped. I took this to mean he was a bit embarrassed to be doing something strange. So rather than turn around, I took the dirt track that serviced the billboards along the interstate. I knew from looking at the satellite that it was likely it would end probably near the gas stations somewhere and I was by this point interested in shortcutting the route a bit. This worked well and I popped out in the BP parking lot. This was to be my last stop and I used the restroom and ate some stuff while sitting down for a bit and bought a lot of water to hopefully make it to the end without another stop. Headed across the highway and explored the new industrial development next to the Towaliga river. Mostly deserted on Sunday evening except for the only finished and occupied warehouse, a P&G distribution center which was at the end of the road of course. And another road not on the map yet that looks to eventually cross the river to some more development over there. There's already room for 10-12 gigantic warehouses on the west side. I proceeded to parallel 16 via some roads I had been on before and remember going by some isolated houses along a gravel road that I was amazed at the time that it existed. Well no more. Another big developer bought them and completely severed the road from the highway with a large graded footprint for another warehouse presumably. They removed the houses and capped the wells also, even though they didn't appear to be part of the development. Probably needed the lots to complete the parcel they wanted to make. It had obviously just happened in the past few months but if you didn't know that you'd think that it was years in the past. Some spider lilies were blooming nearby. With dry brown and stressed grass and trees all around them these flowers really stood out and made the abandoned homesites even more eerie. I was able to creep my way across the brown grass that had sprung up and then dried up to combat erosion before development. By now the sun was beginning to get lower and lower in the sky and finally the temperature began to drop. I was holding up fairly well. Sore in my arms, neck and hands, my legs felt ok and the real concern of the ride, my right knee felt good. As the sun dropped and I was finally done with the last subdivision of the ride and I was left in darkness, I started feeling good and picked up the pace. It felt so much better to ride in the cooler dark evening air. That's really most of it. The heat of the day really drags on me. So I had a good time on the ride in home. Riding Bethany road in the dark was so much fun. It was very washboarded and loose and dry but I was in a good mood and it has some fun rollers. And by the time I got to town it was so late that the roads were deserted so I decided to take the highway and Dividend for a change of pace. Riding the same path north dodging golf carts through the city gets really old. I finished rather later than I would have liked but I had a headwind rather than the tailwind the forecast had indicated, plus there was a lot of dead ends and some singletrack. So considering this I think I made decent time, only stopped 3 times and had a respectable stopped time total.