Bike ride to the Sagami River

 Camp Zama sits near the base of the Tanzawa Mountain range. In between the camp and the mountains is the Sagami River. When we first arrived at Camp Zama we heard there was a nice walking path along the river and so a few weeks ago we drove over to check it out.  Our visit confirmed that the path/trail along the river is the perfect place to ride a bike.

The only problem was that I was too afraid to ride my bike TO the river (and there is no way we can get the bikes in the Purple Grape).  Kimball tried to convince me it would be safe but, based on my observations of the narrow roads and heavy traffic, biking to the river has remained a NO-GO for me.

But, this weekend we had absolutely perfect weather - cool, not cold and lots of sun with no wind! Ideal for a bike ride along the river......so we mapped out a route that had only very limited time on busy roads. I survived and the whole ride was lovely! Fall colors, lots of pretty farms, baseball games and we discovered Park Golf.

Once we got off the busy road the country roads were great - almost no traffic at all!

When we drove to the river the first time, we saw people playing what seemed like croquet. Being on bikes this time we were able to cover more ground so we went to check out the area and see what they were playing. It turns out they were not using standard croquet mallets. Instead its a club more like a regular golf club (driver) but with a short staff. The signs around the area (as best we could interpret them) said this was a Zama City owned "Park Golf" area. We think you pay a monthly fee to play here. We watched people play and it looks very similar to golf except much shorter holes and the ball never leaves the ground (like in croquet). I hope we can try it out sometime.

Here is a view of the course from the bike trail, before we rode down to check it out.

There is a bridge that goes over the river and they have ramps for helping to get your bike up to the deck of the bridge. It was perfectly safe to ride along the bike path on the bridge, but still a bit freaky with all the traffic.

People like to play/picnic at the river. When we came last time we heard a band practicing by the river. Interesting place.

This is taken from the bridge. Below is another view of the Park Golf area. In the background, the tall building furthest to the right on a hill, is the housing tower that sits right in front of our quarters. The three buildings on the right are all part of Camp Zama.

Baseball games - very organized teams!

You might recall our hike to the top of Mt Oyama - well here is Mt Oyama as the sun was setting. Its weird to think we were at the top of that mountain!