A big rainstorm passed through in the night.  I was all snug in my tent by the time it started, and I felt rather smug -- putting in earplugs to sleep through the thunder -- until I discovered that an enormous puddle was forming beside and under half the tent!  I felt like the fourth little pig whose brothers disowned him because he built his house out of nylon.  Fortunately the bottom of the tent stayed watertight.

I hadn't been in such a heavy rainfall since Ludington in September and had forgotten how much dirt it kicks up.  The tent was filthy in the morning!  I decided since I had a short day of riding ahead of me, I would wipe the tent down thoroughly before putting it away, but this took about two hours.  It was 10:00 by the time I hit the road, and then I stopped to use the Internet at a library for an hour.

I stopped for lunch at a little roadside store advertising "hot tamales."  The guy would only sell them by the dozen, because, come to find out, they were frozen that way.  But he warmed a dozen up for me, and I ate them all at one sitting with a grapefruit for dessert/digestive aid.  They were pretty sad little tamales, each about the size of half a hot dog, but they hit the spot.

I had planned to stop for the night at a campground called Tombigbee Lake, in the Alabama-Coushala Indian Reservation, but when I was a few miles from the place I saw a sign for another campground whose location would shorten tomorrow's ride by about an hour, so I went there instead.  The proprietress is from Athens, Greece.

As I was pitching the tent, I noticed that a ladder leaning up against a nearby tree was making a groaning noise when the wind blew.  When the sun set, I noticed that light outside the bathroom was shining right on my tent.  Hmmm... I moved the ladder to the bathroom wall and unscrewed the light bulb: two problems solved!  (I'm the only camper tonight.)

29.7 mi