Somehow despite not really having a plan or an alarm set I managed to get off pretty early, which helped ease my mind as this meant I stood a good chance of getting home before dark. It was cloudy for a few hours after sunrise which was a nice bonus. The east wind was stronger and more gusty than had expected so I was a little slower on the outbound. But I didn't let it discourage me. Nothing really to note the first 50 or so miles till I got to 5 mile long WIlmot Mill road, a gravel road that quickly turned to unmaintained track, mostly soft clay which was still wet from the rain this week. It wasn't that bad for the first couple of miles but towards the middle it got bad enough that my tires packed up with mud and I decided to walk a bit. I only had to hoof it for a couple hundred yards before the soil improved and more rock was mixed in as well, so I rode out. This brought me almost right to the central feature of this loop, the Auchumpkee creek covered bridge. It was built in 1892, and restored in 1985. Closed to cars, bypassed by the modern bridge on the back road. It was a nice tranquil place, with a decent lot of land to walk beside the creek a bit and a picnic table, and basically no traffic on the nearby road. I turned back into the wind and resumed my journey. I had no stores till Roberta at a tad over 100 miles so I brought a lot of food and tried to keep on top of my drinking and eating and not get behind. I managed to find a church with a faucet not long before I was about to run out of the 3 liters I brought with me. This lasted me till Roberta where I intended to stop at the DG but decided instead for a sandwich at the Subway with a huge glass of Cherry Coke. I then rode a few miles down the road to Dickey's Farms for a large peach ice cream cone. I've stopped there before several times but always when passing through on a point to point ride. Felt surreal to have ridden there knowing i'd have to ride back home too. I felt pretty terrific after all the food despite the heat of the day and sun, which I hoped would allow me to power through the 40ish miles to Barnesville, the next store stop, but I kinda fizzled out quickly. I got into the typical two thirds to three quarters into a super long ride malaise. That point where i've been going long enough to knock myself down with the fatigue but i'm still nowhere near the finish. But this always passes, as I now know, so I tried not to stress and continue to ride at a reasonable pace and stay on top of my eating and drinking. In this section I encountered another unmaintained road with lots of soft clay in Crawford county, Allen road, it was all rideable but very chunky as well. I found another church before town with a good faucet. Soon enough I got to Barnesville and grabbed some glorious cold soda. The line was really long unfortunately and I almost walked out to try a gas station or something but it went down pretty quickly since thankfully their self checkout was working. I felt terrific after this and was also very happy to be back on familiar piedmont rollers. Took some nice fast rolling gravel and pavement through Pike county to WIlliamson where I stopped for another cold soda, because although it was getting late in the day and today wasn't crazy hot, it was still steamy. Got going and this pick me up saw me through the end and I managed to get home before dark and actually felt really good at the end, and had the strength to pass several golf carts on the way back. Terrific loop and a great ride. Addendum, I drank around 11 liters of water, and probably about 3 liters of soda on this ride. Still was probably a bit dehydrated at the end.