Remember the Alamo!

The drive to San Antonio from Dallas was relatively short and painless compared to the drive from ATL to Dallas on Wednesday. There was quite a bit of traffic due to an accident near Austin, lots and lots of road work, and just proximity to civilization along the way. But I got here without any untoward events. The thermostat on my car read around 93-96 degrees F as long as I kept moving. When traffic slowed to a crawl due to the silly rubbernecking over the accident on the other side of the highway (admittedly, looked pretty bad - a few smashed up cars and a very warped semi), the thermostat reading rose to 100 degrees. Yikes. The scenery along the way was unremarkable, except that although it's still green, now it's relatively flat. Alex warned me to enjoy the green while I still can; the drive from San Antonio to Phoenix promises to be long and dry. But that will come later.

For now, I'm enjoying catching up with my friends Andre and Allie. Andre and I were fellows at the same time at UCSF. He was in pediatric pulmonology while I was in pediatric infectious diseases. Now he's stationed here with the army as one of the regional peds pulmonologists (one of two, that is, and soon to be the only one in the entire Great Plains for the military families), which means he's pretty busy. Allie is a physical therapist (thankfully for me since she gives me lots of very helpful advice), who's taking a break from work to chase after her two boys, Alex and Connor. I last saw Alex when he was less than a year old, just before Andre and Allie left SF for Texas. Children really are the marker of time. He's now a very cute and curious not so little 3 year old (he's the height of a 5 year old). Connor at just a year old is already showing signs of conforming to the stereotype of younger sibs being fearless and daring, or maybe carefree.

Anyway, Allie and I are going to explore a little of San Antonio today with Alex. I'm embarrassed to admit that I'd forgotten the Alamo was here until they mentioned it. Now that I know, we'll have to go check it out. :)