Wasn't able to leave as early as I would have liked due to attending a concert the night previous, but I decided a good night's sleep was more important. Weather was pretty well perfect except for the all day 5-10 mph ENE cross/headwind. Sunny all day and pretty low humidity and not super hot temps. Rode pretty easy most of the ride since I was not racing anything and had lights for darkness. Route included a lot of new to me gravel roads, many of which were just amazing and super fun, especially Macon county. Things were going perfectly according to plan with no dead ends until just after the hwy 224 section. Near the boundary with Houston county the road I had planned failed to be a through public road. I noticed one further up that connected through with minimal extra mileage so I went up to that. Unfortunately upon turning onto it, there was a dead end sign greeting me and I was filled with dread. I was feeling good at this point but pretty darn tired and with a ton more miles to go. I took a quick look at my map and found that the only other way to detour would be to almost ride to Perry, many more miles than I had to spare in my legs. I decided to just press on regardless. The pavement ran out at a turnaround and I was greeted with a private gate, many no trespassing signs and lots of barb wire. This was a through public road in the past but closed off what looked like within the past 10 years or so. I was taking a little bit of a risk given that hunting season has begun(although firearms for deer isn't for another few weeks). But It was late in the day on a Friday night. Was able to ride most of it till I got to where I was surrounded on both sides by a field with tractors and equipment parked nearby. Didn't hear any activity so I continued. Made it to the end and hopped the gate as quiet as I could (there was a house right across the road, possibly the owner), and made it back to the road without being seen, no problem. Got back on my planned route with only about 2 miles of detour and minimal extra effort. I felt pretty good up to and a little after my 2nd stop, which was at the Dooly county I-75 rest area. A back road passes within a few feet of the parking lot so I hopped through the bushes and filled my bottles and got a coke. Darkness soon fell afterward, and I was looking forward to my time alone in the dark, as the route was significantly more unpaved from there. As it was I ran into quite a few pretty sandy sections once the sun went down, and this is where i started to really run out of energy. I didn't have many more shot blocs and didn't have much else that I wanted to eat. I had mixed nuts but they didn't seem appetizing. I ate as much as my stomach would take but it was nowhere near enough so the last 40ish miles were very tough, I just had no energy. But I stuck to the route despite my knowledge of many much easier alternatives(pavement options abound), and made it to town just in time to see half the population of the county clogging the streets after a football game. Good times. Anyway it was a great ride and next time I will perhaps opt for carrying my clothes/extra shoes in a big saddlebag rather than on my back. Also reroute the dead end road section significantly.