Unlike many of the other places we've visited, this is a place of history more than of life. We're closer to city and township than one would expect of our destinations thus far, but what we've come to see is beautiful - in its own distinct way - nevertheless.

A tower of rough stone, maybe two or three of me tall, stands at the center of a small paved overlook. At its peak are twin eagles, carved or forged from metal, soaring over all the world we can see.

This place is a memorial to the first non-stop flight from Japan to the United States, all the way across the Pacific Ocean, in 1931. It stands to recognize a faraway country, a dream of hope and faith in new technology that could change the world.

A bitter thing, that the wavering friendship commemorated by this statue would be torn asunder fourteen years later by some of the same advances that led to its construction.

I wonder, briefly, if the pilots the memorial is named after were alive for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What they thought of their pioneering being taken advantage of for such absolute destruction and pain.

Past the monument, the entirety of the valley stretches out before us. Its floor is filled with houses, cut through by a river that wound its way as far up and down as I can see. On the opposite side are foothills speckled with tiny trees, so far away that the whole region is washed in blue. The very boundary of my vision is a ridge crested with sharp trees to one side of the monument and a long, slightly snow-capped mountain to the other. If it were not for the brown tiled roofs of suburbia, I could imagine all this as a vast painting. The monument is cast in shadow from my perspective, turning it into a near silhouette, a full-bodied critique of the path America has walked upon since its very early days.

I'm sure there's more symbolism in this view to those who are looking for it, but for now, I'm content enough to just watch the wind whisper through the leaves of the nearby oaks and watch the river run through the valley.

Even so, there's a little tinge of melancholy to everything I see here. So faint that the people living on this hill might not even realize it, but it's there.

I'm glad to be on the road again, but it was a good stop to make.