Bicycling Florida to Texas
Through
Alabama, Mississippi,
Arkansas & Oklahoma

2008 - May - June

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It was another early morning again as there is a heat wave in the south. Temperatures are in the 90's two weeks earlier than usual. Today's route was fairly flat but we had some rough roads at times, we also passed a area with trees growing in the swamp..

For most of the day we were on back roads and it appears some have not been maintained in 50 years. Mary Kay used both lanes and the shoulders on some of these roads trying to avoid pot holes and broken up roads. Good news we saw very few cars. In places the road was in good shape but when they repaired the road, they used chip seal with ¾ inch stones. Therefore the road was as rough as if it had not been repaired. By going on the back roads we covered over 40 miles while following the free way the 2 towns are 27 miles apart.

We got into Aberdeen and tried to use the GPS to find a motel. The first motel was at least ½ mile from where the GPS said it would be. We stopped at a doctor's office and his wife told us about another motel that was just down the road. We put the address into the GPS and it took us to another dead end. The GPS did not know the difference between old and new Highway 45. Finally we went almost back to our starting point and found the motel.

The downtown part of town has lots of old restored buildings. Music is played throughout the downtown area. We had lunch in a Coffee Café with good sandwiches.

When we checked into our room at the motel we were grateful to find Internet service, this allowed us to check on the availability of motels in several towns as we adjusted changes to our route for the next week. We have decided to head west instead of north out of Aberdeen.

We ate at a nearby restaurant and it was a buffet. It was not all you could eat but all you could put on your plate on one pass through. The place was crowded most of the customers over 50 and we got the last available table.