Today is a continuing travel day, After all the heat of yesterday, we were looking forward to a trip up into the mountains to cool off.  We are zig-zagging our way east across Arizona to New Mexico to get to Carlsbad Caverns.  Other than Grand Canyon, there aren't a lot of really interesting places to see, or if there are, they are just too hot at this time of year.  So we are heading up into the mountains where the motorcycle riding is fun, and where there are great scenic overlooks.
     Almost the entire day revolved around AZ-60E .  It was a Sunday morning, and we try not to do much stressful on Sundays, so we began by running a few errands.  We forgot the laptop power cord back in Williams, and noticed last night when we went to plug the laptop in.  The mouse also quit, so I was stuck blogging last night on batteries and using the fingerpad on the laptop.  Luckily, we had a Walmart, a Best Buy, and a Walgreen's all within a mile of the hotel.  So we bought supplies at Walmart, including new batteries for the mouse.  We bought a new laptop power cord at Best Buy, and had a prescription refilled at Walgreen's.  We had joboto wait until 10:00 to do most of this because Best Buy and the pharmacy at Walgreen's didn't open until 10:00.
     Now that all the errands were done, it was time to hit the road at about 10:30.  As we left Mesa on AZ-60E it was a multi-lane freeway, but as we continued east it kept losing lanes and eventually became just a 2-lane road.  By 11:00, the temperature was already 102 degrees, and there were signs that it was headed up like yesterday .  We hoped to get to higher elevations, and lower temperatures before it got much higher.  Once we got onto the 2-lane road, the scenery became what we had expected from Arizona - desert sand with cactus everywhere, and a little scrub grass. 
     When we reached Queens Creek, all of a sudden the mountains started to reappear, and our elevation began to rise.  Then we went through the Queens Creek Tunnel, cut through the mountain, and we knew we were on our way,  The rest of AZ-60E was still fairly straight, with some ever increasing mountains, until we reached the town of Globe.  The scenic part of the ride was supposed to be the 87 miles between Globe and Show Low.  So before we got started, we gassed up the bike, and stopped at the McDonald's in Globe for some iced coffee. 
     The ride from Globe started out scenic, typical twisty, curvy mountain roads.  There were plenty of turnouts for pictures and we stopped wherever we could.  There were lots of Indians selling jewelry at some of the larger turnouts, but nothing that Jody couldn't make herself .  Then began the steep descent into Salt River Canyon.  The views were beautiful, and there was a rest stop at the bottom with access to the river.  So we stopped at the rest stop, and hiked down to the river to take some pictures.  The temperature had dropped a little, but was still in the upper 90's. 
     As we were leaving the rest stop, I had to stop quickly for a car that was coming, and the ground was uneven, so the bike went over.  That's the 4th time I've dropped the bike this trip.    Luckily, Goldwings are pretty forgiving about being dropped.  We both fell out of our seats onto the ground.  The bike doesn't go over very far, so it would be difficult to get a leg caught under the bike.  No one was hurt, and no damage to the bike, but the angle of the roadway made it difficult for Jody and I to lift the bike ourselves.  We were parked next to the handicapped space, and the guy who parked there came over.  He was an older guy, big, but was having trouble walking.  He hobbled over to us, and said that he'd had this happen himself many times .  So he reached over and the 3 of us got the bike back upright, but it wasn't in a spot to put down the kickstand.  He just held the bike upright for us until I could get back on and Jody could get back on and we thanked him again as we rode off.
     We continued to ascend out of Salt River Canyon, stopping at the various overlooks along the way.  When we reached the top at a place called Beckers Butte, the views were spectacular.  There was a couple about our age, driving down the mountain back to Phoenix who were there also.  They told us that as we kept going, it was pretty country up there, and cooler temperatures.  We told them, good, because it was hot as hell where we came from.  The guy had this sad, resigned look on his face as he told us yeah, I know, we live there.
     Once we reached the top, the road didn't head back down, instead we headed into some sort of plateau.  We passed through the town of Show Low which looks like a pretty good size town at 6500 ft elevation.  Once we passed out of Show Low, the scenery changed to something we hadn't seen before .  Everything became flat and green!  Huge fields of green grass with a few trees and a few hills, but mostly just flat land.  It was really striking to see at this elevation.  This kind of scenery kept up all the way to our hotel in Eagar.  I'm not sure what they do with the grassland, we didn't see any cattle around.
    Luckily, there was a restaurant next door to the hotel, so we just walked over.  Mexican food for both of us tonight and it was pretty good.  Tomorrow, we head down the Coronado Trail on AZ-191S.  It's supposed to be one of the best motorcycle rides, with lots of twists and turns and scenic views along the 120 mile trail.

206.8 miles today
15,457.0 miles total

3.650 gallons today
367.861 gallons total