My friend from Colorado, Heather, used to live in Milledgeville, Georgia nearly a decade ago when she worked at the military school. Heather was visiting me in Athens this weekend and wanted to take a drive to her old stomping grounds to say hello to her former neighbors. She has kept in touch with them since she left Milledgeville and wanted to visit since she was in the neighborhood, relatively speaking.

This was fine because I'm always up for a road trip. But I also saw this as a great opportunity to take a bike ride in an area where I had never been before. Our plan was for her to have a nice chat with her neighbors whom she hasn't seen in several years while I hit the road for some exercise.

I looked at the map before I left to get an idea of where I was heading. Even so, I managed to make a couple of wrong turns in her old neighborhood.

Eventually, I found my way to the Vinson Highway, Georgia Route 112, one of the main thoroughfares through town. My plan was to head south away from the downtown area for a few miles, and then turn around.

The Vinson Highway took me past a few Milledgeville landmarks, the largest of which is the former Central State Hospital (CHS), once the largest mental asylum in the world. The center opened in 1842 as the "Georgia State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum," and was in continuous operation until 2010 when it stopped accepting new patients.

At one time, CHS, or "Milledgeville" as it was colloquially known, housed almost 13,000 patients in 200 buildings on 2,000 acres. CHS still exists today in a modified and greatly scaled down capacity. Much of the complex has been re-purposed. Some of it is also abandoned.

I followed the Vinson Highway out of town and passed by a very nice looking property which gave me a good excuse to stop for a breather.

I don't know what this property is other than huge. The fence in front of it seemed to go on forever.

I followed the Vinson Highway to the intersection seen in the photo above where I pulled over to take a few pics of the clouds.

Clouds and weather have always been a favorite picture-taking subject of mine.

Mother Nature was nice enough to provide some great weather for both the ride and camera.

Turning right at the intersection would keep me on the old alignment of the Vinson Highway/Route 112 and take me past the Georgia Veterans Memorial Cemetery.

I continued straight ahead on the new alignment of Route 112 toward the intersection with Georgia Route 540, the new Fall Line Freeway which was scheduled to be fully completed later this year.

I continued onward to the intersection with the new Fall Line Freeway. Turning right would keep me on the new alignment of the Vinson Highway/Route 112. Eventually, the freeway goes all the way to the Alabama state line at the Chattahoochee River in Columbus, Georgia.

Turning left would take me east on the Fall Line Freeway which eventually goes all the way to Augusta.

Originally, I was thinking of turning left and following the Fall Line Freeway about three miles before turning left again in an attempt to circle back to Milledgeville. But I decided instead to turn around and head back into town via the Vinson Highway.

I headed back toward Milledgeville via the Vinson Highway and decided to pull into the Selma Erwin Nature Study Preserve, something I passed on my outbound trip.

This is a hiking and mountain biking area that features about 5 mile of wooded trails.

Small lake at the Selma Erwin Nature Study Preserve.

I hung out for a few minutes before hitting the road for my return trip.

I ended up riding about 10 miles today. That may not sound like much compared to others I have done, it was quite challenging in terms of elevation changes.