Day 47: April 20, Eufaula AL to Pine Mountain, GA

Blog Post

Another border crossing today! We woke up in Eufaula on Easter Sunday with a big day scheduled, but upsettingly no town where we would be able to get breakfast/coffee for at least 30 miles. We called the state park where we were and asked if they knew any local secrets to getting our caffeine fix and they responded “yes, we have an Easter brunch buffet in the lodge.” Already halfway out the park, we pulled a U-turn and went to work on that buffet.

When we finally finished eating and got on the road, the first 40 miles were tough – more big time rolling hills with long, steep uphills and downhills that were all too short. In these scenarios it’s actually pretty nice when we’re in the middle of the forest, like we were this day, because at least we can get in a groove and just push the hills out. So that’s what we did, and 40 miles later we cruised into Columbus, GA, which means we crossed the border!

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We stopped for some energy boosting frozen yogurt

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And I saw this sign, which seemed fitting

We really liked Columbus! It’s this cute town with a decent size and a small college, so it had some spring to its step especially when compared to other places we’d recently been. We actually considered stopping our day and just staying there – our frozen yogurt did a number on our motivation – but talked ourselves out of it and pressed on.

30 of the last 35 miles were lovely. Just lovely. The hills smoothed out some, we had a shoulder to ride on (inexplicably, the entire state of Alabama has rumble stripped each and every one of its shoulders, meaning we had to ride in the road with the cars, but upon crossing into Georgia we were sparred such moronic road planning), and we genuinely felt powered by our frozen yogurt! But oh MAN, we did not know that our campground for the night, in FDR State Park just outside of Pine Mountain, was at the top of a mountain. Holy smokes, the last 5 miles were brutal. We cranked our gearsets to the easiest possible wrung and just grinded those last few miles out. It was not fun and we were riding against dwindling sunlight, but we finally made it with about 20 minutes to spare.

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At the very top of the mountain