Where do folks in Quemado go to get to a “big city”? When I posed this question, I was told Springerville was the place for a grocery and Show Low was place for a Walmart type store. Hence, today was generally heading towards the big city – though still pretty remote and rural.

Todays route came across several hills including a gradual climb the first seven miles. Always nice to see a tower since it indicates top of the hill.

From the top, one can see across to hills on other side, ~18 miles away. I even had light tailwinds!

At 23 miles was town of Red Hill. Sign on the horse tells us this is a “one horse town.”

At 24 miles one can see back across the valley to where photo above was taken.

Not much further I crossed the state line. The shoulder in NM had been very rough and this improved once I crossed into AZ. In addition, I set my watch back an hour. Both AZ and NM are on Mountain time, but most of Arizona doesn’t observe daylight savings. Hence in the summer Arizona is on same time as California and in the winter, Arizona is on same time as New Mexico.

Without much trouble found my way into Springerville.

Each US state seems to put different information on their welcome signs. For example, Colorado gives the elevation, Massachusetts gives the year the town was founded, many states in midwest give the population. So far Arizona has given same info as both Colorado and Massachusetts.

Once in town, I found the laundromat, the Safeway and other highlights.

My plan is to take a rest day tomorrow. Weather forecast says a front will come through with ~80% chance of thundershowers and 0.4″ of precipitation. Doesn’t sound severe but nice to take a break.