Wrapping up a fairly relaxing weekend. Robin worked on some housecleaning chores part of the day yesterday while I played with Enid. I built her a new spaceship out of our empty cardboard moving boxes, to replace the one we had to leave behind in Yountville. This one is even better than the first one. It has a side-mounted hatch so she can get in and out alone (the first one had the hatch on top so we had to lift her in and out). It also has a foam backrest and a supply compartment she can access from inside. Hopefully she’ll take many long journeys to other planets in it, as she did with the one in Yountville.

I also took some time yesterday to walk over to Avenida Morones Prieto to investigate how I can get to work and back on my own (Robin and Enid have been dropping me off so far). Alas, it doesn’t appear that I can afford to buy a motor scooter. I probably could afford a bicycle, but the route looks a little dicey for that- lots of high speed traffic and a complex highway interchange to deal with. I could probably walk to work in a reasonable amount of time, but it would be a very unpleasant walk with all the noisy traffic on Morones Prieto. Therefore I’m thinking the best option is the bus. It took me about 15 minutes to walk down to Morones Prieto where the bus stop is located. So thirty minutes a day transit time to and from the bus stop. That’s not bad. The buses appear to cost 7 pesos a ride, so it’ll be about $1.30 a day for my commute. That’s reasonable. The bus ride itself should only be about 5 minutes each way, maybe 10 if the traffic is quite heavy. The only uncertainty is how often the buses come and which bus to take. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any easy way to find that out from the comfort of home. There’s no website with downloadable maps and schedules like you’d find in the U.S.A. The bus stops don’t even have signs saying which routes stop there. So I’m just going to have to wait at the bus stop and see what I can figure out. I’ll probably give it a try tomorrow. Hopefully I won’t end up in Oaxaca!

Today we went to Parque Chipinque, which is located on the slopes of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the mountain range that forms the southern boundary of Monterrey. It was incredible. Lots of well-maintained hiking trails, plenty of parking at the visitor’s center, only 30 pesos for admission, and best of all it’s a15 minute drive from our house. Fifteen minutes and we were hiking in a forest! I couldn’t believe it. I think we’ll be making plenty of weekend trips there. Enid did a great job hiking on the trails, which were mostly quite steep since the park is on a mountainside. We saw tons of butterflies, including some really colorful, exotic-looking ones. I think it was just what we all needed after spending the last 18 days dealing with the hustle and bustle of a big, unfamiliar city.