Guam Day 29: The Last Mission Memorial - Via Bike

 

3/13/2022 - After a full day of chores around the house, we decided a much needed break was in order. So off to Ritidian we went via bike, this was the same route as earlier this week, but a first time for Joan. We also thought why not try to ride from the tiny house instead of putting the bikes on the back of the car. This part will be revisited later in the post on why riding through our neighborhood via bike is categorized as one of those do not repeat ideas. Today I was on the mountain bike while Joan was on one of the road bikes, our host family has a number of bikes, but depending on the day some are in use while others are not. Off we went enjoying the afternoon and the scenery. 

About half way along our journey we found a memorial that we stopped and took a look at. The road to Ritidian is an interesting route because each side of the road is owned by the military, you get this line of never ending fencing on both sides, the straightest fence you will ever see, so seeing anything but fence is something of interest. Upon coming to up-to this metal plaque you see the words "The Last Mission". Interesting history, I didn't know post the A-bombs being dropped on Japan during WWII, the US continued running bombing missions. It does make sense though that the planes would have flown from right were we stood, Anderson Air Force base just feet away on the other side of the fence. The Marianas had quite the part to play during the war even post liberation. 

History portion complete, we continued our way to the big hill and then down. Joan pushed us to do the big hill on this portion of the ride, I was leery after just getting my tush and pride beaten up a couple days prior. None the less, the ride down was a blast, we still left quite a bit of brake dust behind though, very fast decent. At the turning point, we talked about riding back up and the technique I had seen other riders take back and forth to get up the hill. Joan was like, "bring it on baby" and in high gear on the front crank and low gear on the back rode up the whole hill without stopping. Remember, she had the road bike, which to my point is much lighter, even still though she out did me from two days back, hands down. I on the other hand, even with the good gearing of the mountain bike had to get off and walk the bike up the hill. Now to rub salt in the wound, I had a car stop halfway down, open their windows, and tell me " I think the young lady has you beat". Then drove away laughing and screeching the tires. Great props to Joan on getting up the hill, looks like I have some work to do. 

So heading back is really where this ride gets interesting. Approaching our neighborhood we go from a bike lane on the busy route 3, into the rural route 28. There are plots of land with some housing along route 28 with cars on either side of the two lanes. We found, for the second time today, that some of the neighbors keep their dogs loose and like to chase after the bikers for a little ways. So with Joan on the fast road bike, and myself on the slower bike, you can start to get the image of what it was like to both avoid the cars and the wild dogs driving down highway 28. Do you remember the game paper boy on the early Nintendo? We didn't have any papers, you get the idea. We also saw some wild Boar, thankfully they didn't chase as they can be quite aggressive. So, we now know why Arsenio likes to take the bikes upto the main road, we will start from route 3 next time. :)