‍It was a fairly warm morning and a little bit windy already. The first unpaved roads of the day were red clay and pretty firm and fast. Good indicator of what the rest of the ride would look like. Around an hour and a half in I went down a road that I figured was probably gated somewhere and intended on doing an out and back. The road was very light maintenance but looked like there was some very light traffic on it. I continued on and there never was any no trespassing signs or gates, and at the creek where I expected overgrown blockage or a culvert or bridge out situation, there was a creek ford. It looked like someone had painstakingly dismantled and removed the culvert as it was in pieces near the road, and then dug out an approach and exit to cross the creek directly. I was curious about what the other side looked like and of course I quickly justified my decision to continue on by concocting an alternate route to get back on track. The road on the other side was gravel and maintained much better, so I explored a little dead end to a gate, then rode out back to a minor highway. I decided to loop back around towards the river to get back to my route. And along the way there was a dead end road called Edge road on my map so I decided to ride down that and turn around. But it just kept going and going and with no gate or signs I just kept going. There were some logged areas that had some real muddy ruts which was annoying to ride through or go around but it improved and I was riding again. I came across a hunting camp with lots of campers and saw some movement inside the camp as I approached from a distance. I decided to just ride by as the road continued on. Just as I rode by there was about 5 guys with large dogs and one guy had a rifle that was almost longer than he was tall. They said hi and I waved as I went by and I thought nothing of it. I had glanced at the map and knew there was a proper gravel road very close by and so I had figured that this road must go through to that one and that it was less than a half mile away. They probably were really confused as to where I had come from and where I thought I was going. The answer is that I had no clue. Another quarter mile and the road definitely ended. Overgrown by a decade or more. I was close enough to the other road that I figured i'd just continue on the old roadbed. But it turned out that the road definitely did end there and never did connect through as it was on a little ridge and there was a creek to cross between the end and the road I needed to get to. I looked around really good and didn't see any more signs or anything(there was a gate at the end but it looked to have been put there several decades before and it was open anyway). I ended up just going straight down the hill and back up to the road which wasn't too much trouble as it was mature forest and pretty open. Still I was glad to get back on a proper road and resolved to not do such taxing exploration anymore because I had a lot of riding left to do. I decided to take the road over Providence Canyon State Park and i road the little road network there on the rim so I could see down into the canyon, then I rode back out down the highway down a screaming descent off the steep hill towards the river. I rode the river highway down to meet back up with my route and did a dead end to a park along the way. The highway was almost completely deserted, something which is amazing to me that any state highway could be so dead. Somewhere along this road I actually witnessed a hawk eating a possum right by the road and he didn't flinch as I rode by a few feet away. I met up with my route at Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge and rode the dead pan flat gravel loops there in the wetlands. As I was riding along a grassy gravel track between flat and open water on both sides, There was a large alligator laying out and as I approached he quickly ran back and jumped back in the water long before I could take a picture. There were dozens of large flocks of various birds there. I had the place to myself and so everywhere I went the wildlife would scatter upon hearing me approach. The park does allow bikes thankfully and the whole thing is gated to cars which made for a bit bumpier riding but overall it was decent. After all this and I got back on a road that climbed back up and away from the river, I saw a large wild hog and her piglets cross the road in front of me. Haven't seen this much wildlife on a ride in a very long time. All the exploration and the wind had taken it out of me and I was pretty tired, more than I should have been. So at some point I made the call to shortcut the ride a bit and decided to bypass some of the zig zagging I had planned. So as it was I found another license plate which I carried back with me. I also did a few short dead ends along the way, which included a very cool old abandoned church. Most of the last couple hours were into a more direct headwind so I was very glad to finish. A good but tiring ride. 🎷🐛 94.32 new miles Completed 25% of Stewart County 🏘 Completed 75% of Providence Canyon State Outdoor Recreation Area -- From Wandrer