As a result of sleeping on such a scary place on the previous night, this day I was very tired. The road was not plain at all, which made it really it hard to progress. Each three miles were difficult and we had to stop long periods to recover. We drunk several bottles of water, and stopped to refill them several times. Not even energy bars seemed to help. Our road was parallel to a railroad. Most of the places we crossed were poor and in need of repairs. In one of the cities called Crawfordville almost everything was closed… and we were passing through it on a Tuesday afternoon! Thankfully, we found a gas station where we could buy more water to move forward.
After many hours powering through the hardcore hills we finally arrived in our destination. Greensboro was a nice place. The main street was a historic district full of giant houses. Close to our destination a guy waved for us across the street and came to us to help us find place to spend the night. He offered water and pointed us to a hotel in downtown. We followed his direction, just stopping to buy frozen food at a local market. Right after we arrived at the hotel we warmed up the frozen food in our electric pan, took shower and went to sleep.
Day 9
Our route for this day was somewhat long so we had planned to leave as early as possible. So far we have been balancing how much sleep we get with how early we leave to our next destination. Every day we get up feeling like we could have slept more, but if we do then we end up leaving too late and, as a consequence arrive late, which makes it difficult to sleep early and then to leave early in the following day.
To our surprise, as soon as I started riding the bicycle I noticed my back tire was flat.
We then unloaded the bike, removed the tire and exchanged the tube. We didn’t have tire levers with us so we used the handles of two spoons we had, which worked fine to remove the tire. Took us about 30 minutes to fix the tire and load the bike again. Next, we had to find water. That took us another 30 minutes, and by noon thirty we were riding towards our destination… so much for leaving early. Thankfully the roads were a little easier that day; the elevation was not too intense. The first thing we cross in this route was the Oconee National Forest. During that crossing everything we could see was what seemed to be vegetation untouched by humans on both sides of the road. It was very beautiful indeed.
Not too long after finishing crossing the forest we reached the Madison city limits. We went south about 2 miles to get frozen food in a nearby Walmart, and then crossed the city’s downtown before moving forward. This was a very nice place, full of coffee shops and small businesses which worked on houses very well decorated, at least from outside. Downtown was also located next to the historic district, which had several mansions from the late 1800s and early 1900s, all very well taken care of. We stopped for pictures several times. I wish we had more time to explore this city, but I enjoyed our quick visit.
When we finally reached Covington, our destination for the day, both of us were very tired, so we got to our hotel and, as usual, cooked, showered and went to sleep without further delay.
Day 10
This was a very nice day. We left the hotel early enough to have time to ride slowly and enjoy the whole course. Right when we got out we noticed that, due to the proximity with Atlanta, this course would be much more populated than previous ones. That made it so much easier. We had easy access to water and food, and since we were not running to reach Atlanta we had time to stop and take pictures frequently.
For lunch we decided to stop in a mall called Stonecrest, about 18 miles away from Atlanta. We entered the mall with our bicycles, dressed with those colorful rider clothes and full of bags which made us quite an attraction. Over there we met a couple that came out ask about our trip. They were very nice, and after a few minutes chatting we went looking for a Starbucks to have a coffee before moving along in our route. The closest Starbucks was about 2 miles from where we were. When we got there another guy asked about the trip and refused to believe we were actually going cross-country. Only after we showed him our blog using the smartphone he believed. We talked for a few minutes and then set down to drink our coffees. When I look to the door, I saw that same couple we have talked with in the mall. We chatted a little bit more, had our coffees and moved on. Later on that same day, getting close to the Atlanta city limits I heard someone calling from a car in the opposite lane. Guess who were in the car waving to us?! The same couple! That was too much coincidence!
In this day we crossed a few small cities such as Conyers and later on Decatur, where we decided to stay. Decatur was in the Atlanta metro area and our hotel was just 8 miles from downtown. The prices around here were much better though, so that was a good deal. The hotel was good enough, so we cooked our dinner and went to sleep as early as possible.
Cheers,
Eduardo
