We took a more direct route than the one suggested by Adventure Cycling. That route would have been around 63 miles - more than either us wanted to do in one day. And after Alea's last day in the saddle, it made no sense to split the mileage, since she needed some recovery time.
So it was mainly a day of riding through swamps, forests and farmlands, sometimes on fairly busy roads with little to no shoulder. But most parts of the route at least had an adequate shoulder.
I decided to ratchet my pace down a notch. That puts me in a slightly slower, go-all-day pace, which allows me to enjoy the countryside a bit more. Plus I'm less likely to blow by a turn that I'm supposed to make. Since we are heading into areas where there will be lots of turns and enjoyable scenery, I'll likely keep it dialed back most of the time - it may take a little longer getting from place to place, but when we get there I have a lot more energy.
We camped at Merchants Millpond State Park ($20, primitive, hot showers) west of Sunbury, NC, where we ended the day's ride. It is an awesome little campground with 20 sites, which have all recently been spiffed up. The only other couple camping with us had a white Chevy van and were towing a roughly 28 foot Airstream (they looked a bit like us, only super-sized).
The millpond appears on the map to be a huge lake, and I think it does have a fairly significant surface area. But the surrounding area doesn't have all that much relief, so I suspect it is rarely more than a few feet deep in most places. The part of it that we saw was basically a cypress swamp, and it looked to be a fun place to go canoeing. A fellow Camp Inn owner suggested going for a paddle to find some gators, but since we travel with a dog that is gator-snack-sized, we opted not to.
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