Goal of this ride was to ride a lot of roads i've never ridden before and to discover Hog Mountain for the first time. Weather was sunny and hot with a few patchy clouds after noon. Stiff SW wind, at least it wasn't a NW wind. Kinda on the hot side but it could have been worse too. I filtered water three times, the 2nd one was at a stagnant barely moving backed up small creek at a pond under a rather impressive bridge which had a lot of sediment in it and I could see some rainbow streaks of oily substances in there. I did see fish so at least it wasn't totally dead but it didn't taste great and it managed to slow the flow of my filter to less than half of normal. Thankfully at the end of New Salem road(great gravel road cutting through to McIntosh road near Rio), there was a nice small creek with easy to access clean water. I filled up my hat and threw some down my jersey, it almost took my breath away at how cold it felt. After getting this water I knew I was good till home and wouldn't even have to stop at the high school for extra water. A highlight was on some dirt road out in the middle of nowhere in Lamar county, amidst hunting club land(complete with hunters parked all along the road, something apparently is in season on Aug 1st), was a white 90s Chevy pickup right behind a late 70 Chevy Nova. They were so close I just knew that they were touching, even from far away, and sure enough, as they went slowly by(on the other side of the road), the pickup was pushing the Nova. Nova=no go in Spanish. LOL. Urban legend but still funny: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanish/ There was a lot of pavement on this ride but It was really cool to see so many new to me miles. Very low traffic today even on the slightly busier roads. Most roads had zero traffic.