‍Sunday I left reasonably early and arrived in McDonough right as sunrise broke and waited on a train for a few minutes. East of McDonough was completely deserted early on a Sunday morning. I rode mostly the direct way up to Rutledge while riding a few dead end roads here or there. I made pretty good time as my packing was light for simply an overnight and the wind was very calm and the temperature was in the low sixties. I managed to stretch my three bottles till the first stop at mile 77 at a Dollar General. I went ahead and got some cheese for supper which I wrapped in my towel for insulation, as well as enough to last me several hours while doing the trails. Right next door to Rutledge is Hard Labor Creek State Park and I rode the Yellow trail and Beach trail first, out by the main lake at the park. There wasn't anyone on the trail and there was only a handful of people at the beach and various boat ramps. The trail was very slow going, it was little used so had some minor sticks and deadfall and lots of spider webs. The trail was very old school with lots of roots. I was in good spirits early on while I did these trails and was glad to be in the shade even though the day was pretty cool for late August, it never got much above 80 all day with an east wind. After the connector trail I rode the red trail and it was more of the same, old school rooty singletrack that doesn't get much use. I was breaking so many spider webs it was remarkable. I had to stop multiple times to make sure these very large spiders dropped down off of me. I think they were Joro spiders and they were everywhere. I was trying to take things easy and so all this combined to slow my progress a lot. I met two trail builders on the trail and was initially afraid that I was riding a closed trail but didn't know it because I had come in from the beach area rather than the main bike parking lot. But they were really interested to see someone out riding the trail and we chatted for a bit about the trails and this and that. One of the guys mentioned how he was the one who built everything. I rode off after a few minutes of talk and got back going again, thinking perhaps maybe I would see more people out. I didn't see anyone on the red trail at all and when I got to the end of the loop there were signs about trail direction and come to find out that I had been going the wrong way for Sunday, not that it mattered because it just doesn't look like it gets a whole lot of use really. Middle of the day, lovely weather and a holiday weekend and nobody. I did the green loop next which in the hierarchy of trails is supposed to be the beginner trail but honestly I felt it was pretty similar to the red trail, perhaps a bit less steep pitches but just as rooty and twisty as red. This took a very long time and somewhere in here I passed a family of three on bikes and then a family hiking with dogs. Otherwise nobody. I was really starting to get tired and still was moving very slow, a loaded gravel bike with no suspension is just not fast on a super rooty trail. But I persisted and decided to pop out and go and do the remaining red trail that I had missed from before, and after I got back to the main road through to the trails I talked myself into doing the blue trail too. This was also deserted other than a trail runner and of similar attributes to the other two. I also had all day been doing both the main lines and shortcuts so I could map them properly later. It wasn't all bad, despite going slow I enjoyed many parts even on my loaded bike. In addition the forest was very interesting and open. Lots of very tall mature trees, some were really quite old. Several oaks and poplars probably older than 150 years and one oak that looked over 200 at least. There was also by far the largest river birch i've ever seen by an order of magnitude. And while doing one of the shortcuts I found an unexpected gravesite with two graves and the only marked one dating to 1848. By the time I finished Blue the afternoon had slipped into evening and I was wondering if I should just cut it there. But I ended up doing the other stuff as well, the orange loop by the parking lot which looked like it was used more than the others, and the main dirt road that led to the edge of the property. I broke 100 spiderwebs doing this exploration, which also included a wide creek ford where I got my feet wet again. I had to filter water in the middle of all this at a small creek earlier where I had to walk through and got my feet wet. By the time I finally rolled away from the park it was after 6pm and I still had more than 30 miles to ride. I thought I had planned to go by a store but didn't see a POI on my map so just in case I went slightly off my planned route(but about the same distance) to Bostwick and stopped at a gas station there. I got a gallon of water and a bunch of snacks so I wouldn't have to scramble to find a creek and filter water in the dark at my campsite. The next miles flew by pretty quick as the sun went down and I rolled up to the forest service road where I planned to camp just as the sun went down. I set up my tent in the twilight and with my headlamp, quickly threw my stuff inside and went to bed pretty much right away. 👏 81.3 new miles 🏘 Completed 25% of Rutledge 🏘 Completed 25% of Bostwick -- From Wandrer