The day dawned dewy. Quite in fact, so that it seemed as though it has rained although of course it had not. So since I had not put up my rain cover for my tent, my tent and some of my stuff was wet again and I hadn't really dried out from the downpour from Saturday. I made a mental pact with myself that I would make a concerted effort to place all my stuff out in the sun sometime today. Straight away this morning I had to modify my route since I now knew that the Swamp Perimeter road was mostly private and I had planned to use it. I consulted a current Charlton County dot map and decided to use that to determine if a road was public or not. I went the back way to get to Chesser island homestead and used an open part of the perimeter road but came upon a gate soon. The gate had no access denied signs and was open so I took it. It was only a couple miles to shortcut through to the official refuge pavement and on that side it had all kinds of no trespassing signs but the gate was open. Oh well. I walked to the homestead and then down the boardwalk and up the tower. The way I had planned out turned out to be closed. The Refuge really doesn't want people there at all it seems, it got quite hilarious just how many signs were devoted to letting you know you can't do much of anything. It would have been easier to simply make a sign with what little is allowed. Anyway on the way back down this same road I did see a rattlesnake and a gator finally so it was a good thing anyway. But avoiding the perimeter road meant I had to ride on a narrow 2 lane highway. Traffic was mostly a truck or two every minute or so doing 75mph and giving me 3 feet. The trucks were fairly courteous but one asswipe in a pickup decided to pass me with a semi oncoming, and I had to get off the road for that. Another similar situation with an SUV. Other than that the trip down to St George was ok. Had a tailwind mostly, at least. I ate a quick lunch under a nice live oak grove at a concrete picnic table. I consulted the dot map and it indicated two back roads I could use to get to the Florida line off highway. But both OSM and Google didn't show them. However when it popped up and had the right name I took it(Emmaus Church road), and I am glad I did because both roads were great. I even did an extra out and back to another little bridge over the St Mary's river just for fun. Turned out to be a major route for dump trucks hauling sand from GA to FL to feed the sprawl machine. It was cool though, they couldn't go much faster than me because the road was so poor. Crossed the state line with great joy as my ultimate goal of riding north-south through GA the longest and hardest way was complete. Now the little task of getting back.... Almost as soon as I got to the line I saw another cyclist..He had an old Sky kit on and was riding a skinny tired road bike which should have tipped me off right away.... Dude was weird. I casually said hi and his response was "you're going the wrong way, go the other way! Hold on!" I should have booked it right then and there but I was curious. We chatted and he seemed normal if a little braggadocios. Soon we got to where his turn was, but I was supposed to continue on the road another mile before I turned. I explained where I was heading for the day and he was adamant that it had to be wrong, he knew the right way. I tried to explain that I must have had a reason for making the route that way, must be less traffic overall that way. He wouldn't have it. So I followed him on his turn. We ended up after riding like 3 miles of flagpole subdivision at basically a highway. He was all about trying to help me get to my destination but when I said I could just head down this road to meet back up with my route he said it was a bad road to ride on. I was internally thinking "why the hell did you bring me here then??" I cursed myself for ever deviating from my planned route. Told him I was just gonna turn around and head back to my route the way we came. Dude says sure, I'll come with you. Then proceeded to inform me that he was gonna "draft" me as we turned into the wind. Great. Dude was old and a tad overweight but I knew it would be almost impossible for me to drop him without a steep hill. When we got back to where we were I tried to say goodbye to him but he just reaffirmed he was going to follow me. Great... Anyway after a few miles we came to a sorry excuse for a hill but it was something so I punched it as best I could. Looked back after I got to the next turn into a neighborhood and he was nowhere to be found thankfully. Florida man.... Got a Coke at the dollar general and some food as a reward for getting my heart rate up so high. Honestly apparently my body is getting used to this because a week ago I could barely get it above 125 no matter what I did. Eventually reached Olustee and the border with the Osceola national forest. Just plopped down in a random spot in the woods, glad to be here, finally.