November 7

I've ridden past an awful lot of small stores in small towns that will never open again, due to urban sprawl. And for the same reason, many of the people who work in the gas station/convenience stores that have replaced the old country stores do not know very much about the area in which they are working. Customers in such places are often the best people to ask for directions. I was in one of the surviving country stores today, a grocery and fishing tackle store with a great butcher counter. I bought my lunch and supper there, a basketful of things, which came to $16.50 (which is the main reason urban sprawl has killed off such places - it's cheaper to drive twenty miles to do your shopping). I had been told by clear-eyed 35-year-old overweight blonde outside the store that the lady at the counter inside had lived here all her life and would know where to find a campground. This is in Ponce de Leon, population 435, eleven miles east of Defuniac Springs and 67 miles west of Sneads.
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I browsed through the store, pleasantly surprised that they had stuff like the steak, frozen gumbo veggies, olive oil, and diced tomatoes with green chilis, which became my supper, which I eat as I write. There were six to eight other men in there, many of them talking volubly about fish. The largest and loudest of these guys came up as I was waiting in line, and wanted to push in to the counter with his two loaves of white bread and four bananas. I wasn't going to let him in ahead of me. I was tired, it looked like it would rain (still does) and I needed information fast from that lady at the cash. The ol' boy compromised by saying, "I'll just put these here for now," and placing his stuff on the counter. Hell, I could have held that stuff for a week, and he was bigger and stronger than me.

When the lady at the cash, who was probably the Agnes for whom the store is named, had hurriedly rung up my stuff, bagged it, and given me my change I asked about campgrounds. She knew about the one on my map, but didn't seem to have a high opinion of it. "But," she said, people camp up here behind the city hall. They got water and restrooms and picnic tables."

So that's where I am. As comfortable as anywhere I've camped on this trip, lacking only hot water, but I had a shower this morning at three rivers.