‍I left early enough to arrive in Greenville right around dawn and so I knocked out the rest of the grid there in the first few minutes of daylight. Interesting town. The old housing stock is about half abandoned and it has no real employers other than the county government and a small assortment of stores. But it's a very old town almost 200 years old at this point so there are lots of interesting buildings in various states of disrepair. Soon after I explored what I had figured would be two separate dead ends that was on a road that used to connect through but I figured that no way would it be possible to put them together. But I rode to the end of the first one which ended at a house right next to a large exposed road at a stream. Just before that the old road track veered off along the powerline cut across the same stream but there was no evidence of vehicular travel. Nobody was around and there wasn't much tall vegetation so I decided to make a run for a creek ford to the other side. This was pretty simple but the creek was slightly wider than I could hop so I just got my feet wet. No big deal since it was so warm. Almost straight away I was back on the official gravel road on the other side and I never had to go around any gates or private property signs. So as far as i'm concerned the track is still there and useable. From there I went on a meander to Durand where I rode some more of the dirt street network and beside a cemetery. Even more surreal here as this place is very nearly a ghost town. The nearby paper/sawmill closed down a few years ago and it's a long way from anything really. A lot of abandoned houses and empty lots here. On to Pine Mountain which is doing comparatively quite well. It's not only got fewer abandoned houses but there are brand new ones being built. I rode most of the remaining grid that I had not yet been to which was painless. Got a soda and snack really quick before leaving town so I could skip stopping in Shiloh. I rolled into FDR state park and filled my water bottles at the old stone bathrooms near the Liberty Bell Pool. Climbed up and over the mountain and went down the road heading to the group camp and horse stables of the park. This was a nice twisty paved road with no traffic. I explored a bit past a gate behind which were a lodge and several little cabins. Rode a gravel access road across a dam(no idea if this is allowed or not but nobody was there). I arrived at more cabins on the other side and briefly considered connecting to the other road I was intending to ride nearby but thought I heard a person moving about ahead so I decided to just turn around the way I came in. I rode the other(open and not gated) way to the Equestrian trail area with more lodges and group shelters. At the end of the pavement there were a couple of group shelters that were occupied by a large group of what must have been boy scouts I assume. I needed to go straight to get to the gravel road nearby. I just confidently rode by on what wasn't a very visible road, just a little used track along the powerline right of way made even more obscure because of recent tree trimming. But thankfully this led a very short distance(football field perhaps) to North X Street where I rode out no problem. I rode due east towards Shiloh and explored a couple of neat dead ends on the south side of the mountain. The temperature by this point was in the upper seventies. When I started the ride it was 66 degrees and there was a threat of a line of storms heading my way at some point in the morning, but it must have dissipated because it ultimately came to nothing. Shiloh went by quickly and I rode east along a paved back road that had more roadside trash than I have ever seen. This includes many very poor parts of Mississippi and Tennessee and Arkansas. It was multiple people for many years just tossing things out of the window on purpose. Layers of bottles and cans and plastic bags everywhere. Very sad. This was in Talbot county and went on for pretty much the whole way before I finally turned off onto a gravel road. Once I crossed over 85, the road became much more primitive and narrow, went very steeply down to a creek, and then climbed out on narrow pavement that looked like a driveway by a couple of houses and then continued through some grass leading to eventually clay, up shortly to several askew gates that had evidence of lots of ATV and dirt bike traffic around them. I was very thankful for this redneck activism to reclaim public access, as it seemed perfectly legal for me to pass through. The road was soft red clay which thankfully was dry, continued for a few tenths of a mile or so and changed to pretty nice gravel once I went past another house. Very interesting road. I explored several dead ends off of the paved Chestnut Grove road that were really incorrectly placed on OSM, and rode up to the gap over the mountain down to Manchester without much issue. The hills around the neighborhoods of the west side of town were extremely steep. A couple were over 20%. Surprisingly nice houses too. I eventually rode through the grid and dead ends to the downtown Dollar General and stopped for a little rest to eat a bag of chips and let my feet rest. I decided to try to make this my last stop but probably should have bought more water. It was nearly 80 and I only had the three bottles. I felt okay but not great and after getting rolling again in the country I eventually got tired and at one point on a dirt road I ran across an abandoned house that I decided to check out as a little break from riding. It was very interesting and had a very extensive trash midden behind it with lots of neat old bottles and cans and such. I stopped here for yet another nature break as well and then got back rolling again. The stretch leading north to the Covered bridge was a bit of a slog. Even though had a good tailwind I was coming to the realization that I didn't have anywhere near enough water. So I was rationing when I should have been drinking a lot because of the unusual heat. Still though I rolled through and did the dead ends off of Pedenville as the sun set and was still going fairly well. Eventually I did have to break down and stop to filter water because I couldn't put it off any longer. This turned out to be a great idea as not only was I able to gulp lots of cold water which helped immensely but it also allowed me to skip another store stop. So I rode the remaining way in fairly quickly with a bit of fade at the end but at a good time all considering. 👍 62.79 new miles 🏘 Completed 50% of Pine Mountain 🏘 Completed 90% of Greenville 🏘 Completed 50% of Shiloh 🏘 Completed 75% of F. D. Roosevelt State Park -- From Wandrer