Day 85

Tree farm
Dispite the fact that I sprayed the ground with any killer, a few did manage to make it in. Like maybe 6. I call that a success. Any that sting me it extremely unfortunate though- I don't think anything itches quite as bad as a fire ant sting. Only an hour or so after starting my day, I found a town with a post office. Hooray! It wasn't long before I crossed over into Georgia and found another town. So the post card search began again. I stopped by a drug store- "check the library." Library- "nope, and I have no clue where you would find one." I was looking where to go next on my phone when the lady in the library came out and said she found one. It had random people on the front but it said Georgia on the back so boo-ya! I sent it off from the post office accross the street, restocked at a dollar general (4000 calories of cookies for $2, omg) and was on my way again. The route was decent. A few turns, then 18 miles, a few more turns. I think I only missed a turn once, by like 50 feet. There were lots of hills. Theoretically these should slow me down, but I have found that hilly days are often my farthest. I believe this mut be from the focus I get when going both up and down a hill. On a flat surface, I can kinda just relax. When going up hill, I have to really pump in order to make it up with any sort of speed. Plus, the slower I go, the harder it is to steer. When going down hill, it is important to pump as hard as I can so that I can recapture as much energy as possible and gain enough speed to get me as far up the next hill as possible. Unfortunately I still don't have full use of my highest gear. I'll probably have to get it checked out at a bike shop. Anyways, at one point another biker came up behind me and we chatted for a while. He went to school at UAF- small world! He told me about the next few hundred miles- just worse hills. Awesome. I was really pounding the water today, even though it wasn't quite as hot as it has been on other days. I stopped at a tiny gas station. They didn't have a fountain drink water thing or gallons of water, so I filled 3 liters from the bathroom sink. I would have gotten more but the water was kinda white- I couldn't see through it. It tasted fine, but I knew there would be other towns. I arrived at my last town after 7 and realized I needed more water. I filled up at another gas station quickly and rushed out of town. There were hardly any clouds all day, but a few settled in, making darkness come faster than I was expecting. I found a fire hydrant that was pretty much in the middle of nowhere with a trail leading into the forest. There were houses, but I felt I was far enough away from them. I cut into the woods off the trail and set up camp. The great thing about seeing those spiders that had were several inches long is that any smaller spiders seem like babies. I saw a daddy long legs and a normal sized spider but no ants. I sprayed ant killer anyways. As I wrote this day, at least one animal came and checked me out. Hopefully that doesn't happen all night.