Both of us slept so well last night and woke up to a yummy treat. Elizabeth, Victoria and Adam were busy in the kitchen making eggs and pancakes. What a great way to start off our day. Unfortunately, Ken left for work bright and early, so we didn't get a chance to see him again, but we did get to see everyone else. After breakfast and getting all packed, we were ready to go. Since Adam would be heading through town this morning on his way to his college class, we left our bikes right in the back of the truck last night so we would be ready to head back in the morning. Adam was going to drop us off right back at the church, but from the intersection we had gotten to when we reached hwy 41 it was still 2 miles away in the wrong direction. To add to that, Adam would be heading in the opposite direction to go to school. It just didn't make sense to go all the way back to the church. At this point in the trip, it doesn't matter to ride right from where we ended yesterday just for the sake of two miles. We found a parking lot to pull off in and get the bikes unloaded. It really was just so great to have met the Day family, I'm so glad that it worked out that way. Today was another cloudy, windy day-that wind sure made it feel even colder. It was a pretty easy ride to the city of Macon since the roads were relatively flat. When we got closer to town, the road we were following jumped onto a busier 3 lane road with no shoulder. To avoid riding with the faster moving traffic, we took the business route through the city. It sure did get hilly! Almost right away it went from being pretty flat to pretty steep long hills. It was pretty nice taking the business route though because if we hadn't, we wouldn't have seen any of the little city. Macon was a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be! Shortly after getting back onto our main road that we would follow out of town, we found a bike shop. We stopped in and picked up a new tube, patches, and new break pads. Shortly after stopping at the bike shop, we found somewhere to eat lunch. About 5 miles down the road was a Kroger Grocery Store. There were chairs and even a display model of a hammock outside the store to sit in. We ate the rest of the pasta lunch from yesterday and had a few snacks of Clementine's, Triscuts, and a can of peaches each since there wasn't much pasta left. Once we left the city there were a few rolling hills before it flattened out again. We passed through a few little tiny towns that had the railroad running right through it. The strong headwind just killed us again. We had hopes to make it another 15 miles down the road to the next town, but it was already about 5 when we arrived in Forsyth. Our first stop was McDonald's. Once we got onto the internet, we got a message from Lynda, who we stayed with in Jasper. She told us our SPOT wasn't working. I checked it and sure enough it wasn't. We figured out pretty quickly that it was because our SPOT subscription ran out. Joey had gotten an email about this back in December and when the subscription didn't run out at the end of December or January we kind of forgot about it. The only reason it didn't re-subscribe automatically is because of the bank changeover we experienced in the beginning of the trip. Either way, even though we only have a month left, we decided to re-subscribe. Joey was able to get that all fixed without too much trouble, although we were worried that we would have to re- do the link and everything on the website. We made a stop at Walmart, to get some stuff for dinner and some cereal for breakfast in the morning and then headed out to find somewhere to set up our tent. The first church that we found cars at we stopped and asked. They didn't have a problem with the idea of us setting up, but they were worried about our safety because the church was "not in a very safe area," which was evidenced by the cop cars down the street. So, we headed to a different area of town and found another church that had some cars at it. All of the doors were unlocked, but we couldn't find any one there. Just as we were about to leave, we saw 3 people walking down the sidewalk that were all dressed up. They looked like they could be heading towards the church, so we waited for a minute. Sure enough, we were right. We talked to them and they said it would be fine but they would rather put us up in the fellowship house, where we would be warm and get a shower. The intern Pastor, Barry, from Atlanta was there tonight because they were setting up for a funeral tomorrow, so we would have some company! It really was amazing. We got to cook our dinner on the stove, wash our dishes in a sink with nice hot water and enjoy a nice hot shower. We spent quite a while talking with Pastor Barry since he was pretty interested in our trip. It was a very pleasent evening. And to top it off, I got a call from my BFF Kelly and found out that her and Will had just gotten engaged!!!! It surely made my day as if it hadn't been made already. We rolled our sleeping bags out and slept in library of the Fellowship House and were again, so thankful to be inside where it was warm! Our miles totaled 56.44 today.
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