Today is Palm Sunday morning and should have been a rest day but looking at the weather report and seeing very high winds in the forcast for the coming week we decided to ride today and take the rest day later. B&B's are rare in the South and SW and the few we've stayed at previously didn't serve breakfast; but Katerina said the B&B concept came from Europe and had been common for years so when she started her business she wanted to do it right and be a place where people could feel at home and have a good breakfast and time to chat if they'd like.

The wind was a big subject of discussion at breakfast this morning. Katerina informed us that strong winds were very common in New Mexico this time of year and were expected; "They say Arizona blows and Texas sucks" she told us. The wind forecast for Monday afternoon and all day Tuesday for the surrounding area (and direction we were going) were for 30 mile per hour winds with gusts of 50 to 60 mph so caution was urged for high profile vehicles on the road (and bicycles, we presumed).

Marie dropped us off the 6 miles where we'd been picked up outside of Quemoda and we began pedaling with Dale leading and me drafting behind again. We worked very hard but by the time we got back to town we realized much forward progress was going to be quite difficult so we flipped the script again and drove ahead 30 miles, just short of the Arizona border, and started East toward Quemoda with the wind at our back. Elevation was about the same, on average, with rolling hills, but we were able to progress nicely since there was a good road shoulder. Going with the wind really helped although my hands (and my neck and back) got stiff and sore as we still fought to keep the bikes steady and especially when holding the brakes while going downhill. Fittingly, we biked past several dozen giant windmills... Don Quixote, eat your heart out. Arizona, here we come, even if we're biking in the opposite direction...

The terrain was apparently well suited to the wind; when driving, we noticed little dust blowing and even the grass, shrubs and trees stood straight and there weren't noticeable branches blowing in the wind. Since it was all country, with an occasional ranch (and no towns) there were no flag poles to see how they were moving; but we did bike by an airplane windsock set up along the road and it was straight out parallel to the ground.

We arrived back in Quemoda, took a break for lunch and drove from there and checked into our hotel in Springerville, AZ. In spite of having biked 33 miles both with and against the wind we struck out again and biked back the 13 miles to the AZ/NM line, so it turned out to be a 46 mile biking day.

Springerville, AZ has a population of about 2000 people. We did laundry and had dinner at a busy restaurant. Biking 7 days in a row has me very tired but I'm excited that I'm all the way to Arizona.