We had a gigantic thunderstorm last night that dropped buckets of water on San Antonio. It woke me up with lightning, the sound of rain and thunder about 3AM.  I tossed and turned for a while with Ria sleeping next to me, but finally got up around 3:30 to cook breakfast: an omelet replete with curry and garlic baked ground turkey, cheese, tomatoes and hot sauce. And coffee.  A tasty but very early start to the day.

I checked my A Course in Miracles daily lesson. In recent days I have discovered that the entire Course -- text, workbook for students and manual for teachers -- is online. It is amazing how the Internet has extended the distribution and awareness of the Course so far beyond what the printed book could ever have hoped to accomplish. I have also discovered several excellent teachers and mentors who help all of us studying the Course penetrate its often dense and difficult content. At some point I'll  post my favorite links to those resources. After all, this blog is called "Adventures in the Dream" because of influence from the Course.

One can only watch so much Fox News, so around 4AM I decided to go for a ride to see what of interest is in the neighborhood.  The answer: everything one could ever want. It's a shopping mecca. There's an HEB Super grocery store (similar to Winco in the Northwest, but even more upscale), Lowes, Target, every kind of restaurant imaginable and retailers to satisfy anyone's need for virtually anything. It was nice to be the only car on the road at that early hour so I could amble around to check things out. No doubt: people in this area have all the "shopping infrastructure" one could hope for.

Normally Ria does not go to the dog park on weekends. It tends to be crowded, I was told, and there is always a concern about less socialized dogs, aggressive dogs, etc. But we took a chance and left about 7:15. As we arrived Ria's two dog pals were just leaving, so we had the entire park to ourselves for about 30 minutes.

Later a woman showed up with a small dog, which she kept in the "Small Dog Area" of the park. A fence separates the small and large dog areas, but that didn't stop her dog and Ria running the length of the fence, back and forth again and again, for about 10 minutes at top speed as if they were having a foot race to see who could get to the end faster. So after all, Ria got some good exercise. She also seemed intrigued by the standing water left from all the rain.