After a great nights sleep, we woke up to the sound of rain outside. With not too much enthusiasm for another rainy day, we decided to just lay there in the comfy bed for a little while longer in hopes that it would pass. We ended up not getting up until around 8, but were very happy to notice that the rain had dissipated quite a bit. Joey and I had some of our cereal and milk that we had bought last night at the store for breakfast. By the time we were ready to leave, Tasha had arrived to spend the day with Linda, so we got to see her one more time too! After saying our goodbyes we headed out towards Georgia. We only had about 14 miles to go before getting to the line, so we were pretty excited. It was a very cloudy start to the day, but we didn't have any raindrops fall on us, so we were grateful for that! As we were coming around a bend, we saw a big sign that we knew was the FL welcome sign even from the back. When we fully got around the corner, we were a bit disappointed though. No GA welcome sign! As we were passing over the state line where the pavement distinctively changed, there was still no sign in sight. We remained hopeful, but in the end, never found one. Although it was a bit of a let down, it wasn't the end of the world in the least bit since we can always get a picture on the way out of the state, and after all, we've already ridden through GA on our other trip! The little bit of shoulder we had in FL completely disappeared when we crossed over into GA. That, however, wasn't much of a problem because the road we were on had hardly any traffic at all on it. One of the first things we noticed in GA was that the trees had either no leaves on them or had ones that had turned red or orange. We didn't see any palm trees at all, so we were wondering if they were done for good, too. For the majority of the day, we had a side wind that slowed us down at times, but also gave us a little boost at others. After about 24 miles, we took a break at the McDonald's in Valdosta to use the internet. Joe was a bit impatient today since he wanted to get a ton of miles done, so we didn't take too long of a break. I was feeling REALLY hungry for some reason, almost to the point where I was feeling shaky, like I get when I haven't eaten in a while. I had some Triscuits and some of my chocolate bar to tide me over. It was still a little early to have lunch. We had planned on finding a grocery store or a place to get some food before heading out of town (since this was a much bigger town than the ones we would be going through in the near future. Somehow we managed to miss seeing a grocery store, and had forgotten to look it up at McDonald's because Joey wanted to get on the road. Whatever the case, we headed out of town without stopping to get something for lunch (even though we always have an emergency meal of rice and beans, we didn't really want to have that unless we really needed it). Joey was in a big hurry today and was a little grumpy at me for taking too long with my e-mail, so it was an interesting day. As we were leaving Valdosta, the road we were on turned onto the I-75 for a while, so we had to find an alternative route for those miles. Luckily it wasn't too hard to do so. The rest of the day, we just cruised right along, and didn't even end up stopping for lunch. Joey, being in a grumpy, impatient mood today, rode ahead quite a ways so he could go his own pace for a while and not have to wait for me. This ended up working out ok because he didn't have to wait and I didn't have to rush. The only bad thing would have been if I had gotten a flat tire, but I had my cell to call him had that happened. The clouds eventually went away and we had blue sunny skies for the rest of the day. The wind was sill blowing and we were starting to feel just a tiny bit cold. In the end, Joey waited for me in the 2nd town from Valdosta and then again in the town that we ended in for the night, Tifton. By then Joey was feeling really hungry, but for some reason, I wasn't that hungry anymore. After asking around, we were able to find a grocery store to pick up a "Voila" meal for dinner and then go seek out a place to set up the tent for the night. By the time we left the store, the sun had gone down quite a bit and the temperature had dropped significantly. We were definitely feeling pretty cold then, and we're not even that far north yet! After a bit of searching, we found a beautiful church that was kind of out of the way from the main area that we might be bothering anyone. The church was massive- it had 4 buildings: the church, chapel, fellowship hall/nursery, and offices. The chapel had a glass door so that you could see inside and boy was that beautiful! We didn't see anyone around, so we weren't sure if we would be able to talk to anyone about setting up the tent or not. After we knew where home would most likely be for the night, we headed down the street to McDonald's and ended up getting milkshakes. Joey got his usual chocolate shake and I got a Shamrock Shake, just because I love mint, and I had never had one before. After relaxing inside for a little bit, we headed back over to the church in hopes we would see someone to ask. Still no sign of anyone, but since it was dark, we had to set up somewhere. We found a nice corner where we would be out of the way and not bothering anyone. The wind made it feel way colder than it really was, which was probably somewhere in the mid-upper 40s. With a nice hot meal of "Voila" in our bellies, I washed the dishes and we went to bed. I was too tired to even want to type any blog tonight, so I just simply went to bed. We covered a bit more ground than we have in a while. Guess we're finally back to riding the kind of miles we used to ride on our other trips and at the beginning of this trip, or at least until the snowy cold weather north of us starts to slow us down. Our miles totaled 86.92 today. Not the best days from the trip, but we covered a lot of ground, so it was productive.
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