Golf Chickens!

Since we live on the navy base, most of our days, hour by hour, feel pretty much like being in America. We shop at the Navy Exchange, buy regular foods at the Commissary, and work out at a pretty normal navy gym. And for the most part, the main towns of Guam resemble the States quite a bit. There are a lot of the same food chains, like California Pizza Kitchen, Denny’s, and Outback Steakhouse. You can buy things for the house at Home Depot, K-Mart, or Macy’s. People drive on the same side of the road, speak English, and use the dollar. All in all, not a huge cultural adjustment.

There are certain places, though, that make it quite obvious we are no longer in San Diego. One of those places is most definitely the golf course. Our first day at the driving range on the navy course, we saw some chickens near the road. Didn’t think anything of it until we saw a big red chicken and five red baby chicks crossing our fairway on the 13th hole. After playing that course three times, we are now quite used to having our putting disturbed by roosters crowing in the woods 10 feet away. These aren’t just any old cock-a-doodle-doos. These roosters sound like they’re dying and this will be their last shout to the world. They seem to have even better timing when you’re putting for par.

In addition to the golf chickens and roosters, scrappy old boonie dogs roam the course. There’s a course boonie dog that follows some golfers loyally from hole to hole. We have also heard pigs snorting through the trees. And one day at the driving range, a pig suddenly started screaming like an angry child for five minutes (we heard it was caught in a pig trap but somehow got away). I guess the whole zoo atmosphere kind of makes it feel like we’re back in San Diego.

All in all, though, we can’t complain about the courses here. Granted, we’ve only played the two military courses, but so far we’ve yet to have to wait on a group in front of us, as the courses have been pretty empty. We usually finish 18 holes in 3 hours at the most. Despite being the rainy season, we’ve yet to be poured on. The fairways are some of the greenest fields of grass I’ve ever seen. And best of all, the view from the tee box can be simply breathtaking.

We are lucky we can fit in another round tomorrow (Monday) since Nick has the day off unexpectedly. It's nice that we've found something we can do together on land here. Maybe even do well... Nick got his best score down from 97 to 94 last week. No thanks, of course, to the golf chickens.

Gorgeous tee box view at Anderson Air Force Base
Anyone ready to come visit yet??