It was pretty quiet all night, save a few minutes of fireworks a few miles distant just after sunset, and cows mooing as dawn approached. I managed to sleep pretty good and felt ready for another full day of riding. In theory today was a shorter day, but looming over me was the lack of an open store today, and most of the miles today on pretty rough gravel and dirt roads. Since I had not cooked anything for supper I still had a liter and a half of water and figured this would be good to get me to Cottonton. Unfortunately I realized that this tiny place probably wouldn't be open on Sunday. I stopped to filter a liter of water from a little cypress bog, and I was glad I did because the store was closed. I crossed the river to the Georgia side and found the largest roadside field of wild plums I've ever seen. I stopped and ate a few good ripe ones and rode on through the tiny town of Omaha. No store here either although there is a brewery, not that it helped much, it being Sunday morning. Pavement turned to gravel right out of town and I stopped to laboriously filter 4 liters or so of water from a small stream. Felt much better afterwards. Stewart county gravel turned to dirt fast, and the going was rough and slow. Lots of badly eroded cuts beside each hill climb, with some soft sand at the bottom of each wash. I managed to ride it all just fine. What few houses I saw in the vast forest were abandoned long ago. On a short highway section I rode by a random park that was just a flowing spring. I took the opportunity to top off my bottles after filtering first. I had been following an abandoned railroad through the county since Omaha, and I was really looking forward to checking out the site of a ghost town called Charles or Charles Junction. I turned off onto a very abandoned looking dirt road that was super washed out. Still public though, it had a stop sign and a street name up and no gate. I managed to climb the hill without putting a foot down barely. I soon came upon what should be the town but there was nothing but overgrown forest and not much evidence of the at least 50 houses that once stood here near the railroad according to the old USGS maps. I found a driveway and walked up and saw a power pole and phone hookups, nothing else. Rode a bit further and actually found an old house. Very old and overgrown. Falling in too. I'm pretty brave at exploring but even I had to admit it was very unsafe to try and enter. I could see in pretty well anyway through the window and there was a bit of quite offensive graffiti. I didn't stay long and wandered up to the highway. There was another house here but it was even more overgrown to the point where you almost couldn't see it. At the highway junction there was a historical marker about someone who was born in the town. From Wikipedia: Dorothy Pitman Hughes (born 1938)[1] is a feminist, child-welfare advocate, African-American activist, public speaker, author, and African-American small business owner. I continued on and entered Chattahoochee county. The hills began and the gravel and dirt roads were in terrific shape. I made good progress but the heat was wearing on me a bit. I saw several herds of wild hogs cross in front of me, and lots of pig signs on the roads everywhere. On one road I descended a big steep hill and at the bottom was soft and wet red clay mud that was slow going but I didn't have to walk thankfully. The hill afterwards was soft sand which was super hard especially with tons of mud on the bike. At the end of the road at the highway I met a couple of fit looking guys next to a van with a trailer. We chatted a bit and it turned out one of the guys was running across GA. He was at 217 miles and still had 30 or so left. Said he started on Wednesday and hadn't really slept at all. Amazing. They had tons of water and such in the back and I didn't have the heart to ask for any and they never offered. I only had a liter or so at the time. I pushed on and made the decision to divert from my planned route and go through Buena Vista to get food and water. I was low on food and very low on water and didn't feel like filtering. But mainly I wanted the pick me up of a cold drink. I took a gamble on a side road in the direction of town. Just a few miles then I'll spit out to the main road I thought, no problem. This road turned out to be one of the most difficult roads I've ever ridden in all of Georgia... It started out ok, Although it did say that it was closed ahead for a warning. However I had glanced at the heat map and it showed good evidence of folks riding through. It descended very steeply to a creek. The old car bridge was long gone and in its place was a homemade ATV wooden bridge that just had a sign saying no cars or trucks. Not a no trespassing sign to be seen. I continued on and the track narrowed and alternated between extremely rough and washed out gravel or super soft sand. Some seriously eroded road cuts beside me as I climbed gradually and occasionally I had to walk. Finally I reached the paved road to town and went ahead and drank my last sip of water. I rolled into the Dollar General on fumes and went shopping with the hand basket. The girl at the checkout took forever to check me out. I could have checked myself out three times already if there were a self checkout. I finally stumbled out onto the hot pavement and drank a Gatorade and a coke and filled up my bottles and stuffed my frame pack. Turned out that my campsite really wasn't that much further and I was very glad to pull in at the WMA and to find it deserted. Camping beside a couple small ponds. It's much less buggy than yesterday. Great day overall, a bit hot but manageable.