Well, here we are in Tom III's hometown (well, at least the town where he was born many moons ago). I was here going through OCS from July 1962 to December 1962 and Tom took the opportunity to be born in November of that year. In case you need help with your math, that means he hits double nickels this year!
While we're on the subject of past years, I checked my records last night and found that we are retracing the steps we took in 2013 when we travelled cross-country to see Char in Pensacola. It's almost day for day the same!
As we left Fort Stockton this morning, we had the smell of oil in the air from all the gas and oil wells in the area. We went from the wide open prairie to rolling tree-covered land. The hill country around San Antonio is really pretty.
We are staying at Lackland AFB for the first time in a long time. Good quarters, but in the true Air Force way of doing things, they had really warm weather last week (up in the 80's) and now it's close to mid-forties. So, last week they turned off the heat in the buildings and it hasn't kicked back in yet! Brrrrr. Added to the cold is a really brisk wind bringing the temperature down to around freezing. I thought we came south and east to get away from the cold, but instead we seem to be bringing it with us.
The buildings here have really changed - mostly new multi-story huge basic military training buildings, but in some respects it hasn't changed at all. There are still hundreds of basic trainees doing PT, marching, etc. in the open areas. It was fun going through the BX and seeing some of the basic trainees who had their families visiting them. The mothers and fathers proudly wore their Air Force Mom and Air Force Dad sweatshirts and their girlfriends were busy catching up. Fun to watch!
One of the nice touches is the familiar bugle calls - the Colors in the evening followed by the National Anthem and I'm sure we'll hear Taps sometime this evening. Just hope they don't play Reveille too loud in the morning :-).
Obviously, we didn't get to play golf today because of the weather, but the golf course looks really nice. Perhaps, we'll get a chance on our way back home. We sure ain't going further north on our return trip.
I think we have one more night on the road before we get to Pensacola. Not sure where we'll spend tomorrow night, but it'll probably be either Lake Charles or New Orleans. We'll keep you posted.
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