{"id":23632,"date":"2018-04-07T02:31:40","date_gmt":"2018-04-07T06:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=23632"},"modified":"2018-04-07T02:45:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-07T06:45:57","slug":"guam-day-1-signs-of-the-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=23632","title":{"rendered":"Guam Day 1 – Signs of the Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlike the supposedly organized tour of Tunisia, I\u2019ve opted to see Guam using the patent-pending \u201ctourism by walking around\u201d method.\u00a0 I have no set plan besides the marathon tomorrow at 3 AM.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t booked any day trips or even scoured Viator or Orbitz for activity recommendations.\u00a0 I\u2019m embracing the island lifestyle and just trying to flow through this trip.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll miss hugely important Guam sights but I\u2019m hoping to just be and exist in the moment and shrug off cries of, \u201cI can\u2019t believe you didn\u2019t see X<\/em>!\u201d where “X” is the greatest thing in the history of Northern Mariana Islands… and thus maybe the world.<\/p>\n

As yesterday\u2019s post can attest, I\u2019m seriously jetlagged and messed up on time and space and general being.\u00a0 So zoning out may be the best option anyway.<\/p>\n

For much of the night, I had been in and out of consciousness.\u00a0 Finding the hotel was a bit tricky as google maps and Guam are apparently not 100% in sync.\u00a0 But turning in around midnight, I said a little thank you to the Carrier brothers as the air conditioning works great here at the Guam Business Motel.\u00a0 The humidity is strong, perhaps because, ya know, it\u2019s an island.<\/p>\n

I woke up this morning to the tolling of the bells at 5 AM. The sun wasn\u2019t up.\u00a0 It wouldn\u2019t be up until closer to 6\u2026 which means tomorrow\u2019s run will be mostly in the dark.\u00a0 Yet I\u2019ll still wear sunglasses.\u00a0 Because that\u2019s how I roll\u2026 er um… that’s how I run.<\/p>\n

The expo was a couple of kilometers away and I figured I\u2019d rather walk it to avoid parking.\u00a0 Traffic is seemingly not a real thing, at least not on a Saturday morning.\u00a0 I was able to “Frogger” around the \u201cbusy\u201d highway and roundabouts with maybe a car or two as obstacle in the entire distance.<\/p>\n

Because this is just a stream of consciousness amble through the streets of Guam, I\u2019m going to post a photo album with a few comments on pics here and there.\u00a0 But the one prologue to this is yet another of my \u201cmemory informing the present\u201d stories.<\/p>\n

One of my best friends in college had this idea for a sitcom.\u00a0 It was about a wealthy family that lost everything\u2026 everything except a deed to a strip mall in Delaware.\u00a0 So they had to go and run this thing and each season there\u2019d be some returning leased stores and some now shopfronts to keep the characters fresh.\u00a0 He pitched it as a kind of \u201cCheers with Stores.\u201d\u00a0 It was going to be called \u201cIt Ain\u2019t Over\u2026 \u2018Til It\u2019s Dover!\u201d\u00a0 In the intervening years, there\u2019s been Strangers with Candy<\/em> and Schitt\u2019s Creek<\/em> and various other shows that had me occasionally think, \u201cMan, Harper really had something there\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 I thought of him again as I walked past one particular strip mall in Guam.\u00a0 The streets near the ocean were populated with your typical beach town varieties \u2013 massage parlors, souvenir stands, dive bars both for alcohol and for self-contained breathing apparatus\u00a0adventures, tattoos, and the like.\u00a0 This strip mall seemed to have the perfect mix for my imagined \u201creboot\u201d of Harper\u2019s sadly never produced show.\u00a0 Maybe we\u2019d call it \u201cHere Today\u2026 Guam Tomorrow.\u201d\u00a0 Nah, that\u2019s lousy.\u00a0 Harper\u2019d know what it should be called.\u00a0 He was (and remains) a TV genius.\u00a0 But I digress.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s some choice storefronts that could be featured in Season One:<\/p>\n

First thre’s Mom’s Burger, which is near the Pachinko Place which all happens to be just below the American Chocolate Factory.<\/p>\n

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And then just next door is the Shogun steak and lobster place with a mascot that is either caricature racist or cultural re-acquisitive.\u00a0 I’m leaning toward just straight up racist but ya never know…<\/p>\n

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And finally there’s the “New” Latte Store.\u00a0 What happened to the “old” Latte Store?\u00a0 Oh, that’ll be a mystery saved for season 4… but let’s just say it involves (at least in part) a three-legged beagle, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish and a faulty-wire in the percolator.<\/p>\n

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Attention all shoppers: Hilarity is priced to move at this strip mall!\u00a0 No joke held back!<\/p>\n

… sigh.\u00a0 I miss ya, Harper.\u00a0 You would’ve been able to fix this.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

It’s… Run Kevin Run’s Photo Album of Guam (Day 1-ish… because I really don’t know what day it is.)<\/p>\n