Have you ever asked the universe for a sign to help you make a decision, to know your life is moving in the right direction, or to let someone, who has passed over, know how much you miss them? I wanted a sign sooooo badly to let me know bringing my family to NeuroCytonix was the right thing to do, but I didn’t know what the sign should look like.

With much on mind as I was preparing for the trip I couldn’t conjure up a sign so I decided to sleep on it. The next morning just as I was waking and in a lucid dream state, I saw the face of a horse, nose to nose with me. I could smell it, hear it and feel it. Then, there was a flash of green. As soon as my eyes opened, I thought “Okay, my sign is a green horse.” I told no one about this except Julius because he is a good secret keeper. When I checked my phone, I saw a message from a friend that said, “I don’t know what this means but here it is,” He sent me an emoji of a rider on a bucking horse with a plate of spaghetti on the rider’s head. It was funny and well timed, but it wasn’t green.

From that point on, as I went about my tasks, I began looking for my green horse.

A couple of months ago I didn’t know who Laura Lynne Jackson was, but then a podcast interview with her popped into my feed during a long ride home from deinstalling an art piece from a show. The kids were with me and my daughter is a big believer in angels, magic and lucky possibilities. Laura Lynne is a Certified Medium who went through rigorous testing so she could volunteer for the Forever Family Foundation to help families through the grieving process of losing their children. Of most interest to me was Laura Lynne’s conviction that every one of us has this special ability to pick up on the signs around us from those we love and other guides on “the-other-side.” But our busy lives and pre-occupations make us blind to seeing or feeling such things.

Laurel Lynne suggests remaining open to the multitude of ways that your sign could appear. So, my green horse may not be a horse at all, but a tattoo of a horse on someone’s arm, or a cloud formation. Could it be a green horse shoe? What about an old Ford Pinto, painted green? Possibly. At the very least, it would be a fun game in the midst of too much seriousness.

A few days went by, a panic attack ran through, but no green horses crossed my path. Finally, when we were settled into our hotel in Monterrey, MexicoI told my daughter about the green horse so she could be on the lookout too. The “game” was officially on. Surely, it wouldn’t be that hard to find a green horse…….I couldn’t have been more wrong. There were no green sea horses at the aquarium, but there were a lot of neon green coral with the sea horses. Did that count? My daughter said, “yes.” I said “no.” There were no green horseflies in the Children’s Museum even with the many bug references including a green print of a common house fly. In the multicoloured animal clings on the side of an elevator, my daughter found a yellow horse and a green fox (Is a green fox a young, naive fox?)  There were no horse formations within the green foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountainsides. No green horse painted on any of the coil pots and retablos from La Milarca Museum in the park, where we walked Lilac. No green horses in any of the artisan’s booths at the Sunday street festival, and not one green horse reference during the multitude of rides we took in various routes back and forth from the Research Center, not a gift shop, salon or bar called The Green Horse. Nothing.

I even asked our support staff from the NeuroCytonix Center if there happened to be a Mexican legend of a green horse somewhere in the area? She knew of none. So, I turned to the internet and found an old Mexican tale of a witch and a green horse, but it was much too obscure for me to accept as my sign. When I googled “Green Horse” it said the term is used to describe young, untamed horses so I took out my scope and checked the foothills from our window looking for wild horses. Nothing. The days kept passing and there were no green horses anywhere to be found.

Julius’ sessions were going well. To my surprise, he was already showing positive changes. I was prepared to see no changes until after we completed the protocol. That should have been enough of a sign, that he was improving. But, I couldn’t help myself. Every drive and walk had me looking. Every meal with verde sauce had me checking for “Cabrillo” (horse) in the name (not the ingredients) and there wasn’t one restaurant called Cabrillo de Verde. Even on the TV in our room I looked for green horses. Surely there would be one in Oz, The Great and Powerful, a spin off of The Wizard of Oz. Remember the horse-of-many-colours? We enjoyed the movie, but there were no green horses- even in Emerald City. EMERALD City!! We watched the Avatar movies. They are filled with creatures of blues and greens. Some of them kinda looked like horses. Neytiri, the main Avatar character, actually has a line in the first movie where she says about the horse-like creatures, “They are not horses.”

Our time passed quickly and with only a week left of Julius’ sessions I accepted that a green horse was just too unique of a sign to have chosen. I considered how well Julius was doing. His eyes were working together. He had no painful, spastic episodes. I could rotate both of his shoulders. He could lift and turn his head. He had no acid reflex or his other typical gastric issues. He started swallowing and he was working hard to roll over in bed. Above all, he was alert and happy. We all were. My daughter turned 10 and everyone celebrated her day. (That’s a story in and of itself!) Now, she likes to say, “I am a decade!”

My attention began shifting back to our transition home and I started feeling anxious again. The work. The responsibilities. The chores. The medical. The finances. The management of it all stretching myself to unhealthy levels of stress. It is a practice in life-balance. We all do it in one way or another. I’m in awe of the families that we’ve met. Every one of us has figured out how to be here, for our children. Most, like us, have gotten help. Our backgrounds and languages differ, but we share a truly special culture through our children and they are beautiful in all their differences. I felt grateful and started working out ways within my head to make changes at home that could ease the demands. So, we stopped looking for green horses.

Maybe the real sign I was searching for wasn’t a physical sign at all, but something else. Maybe it had to do with validations about the thing you are doing and whether or not that thing makes organic connections for a good you couldn’t even picture; Like the “white car guy” (That’s what my daughter calls him), the guy who saw us in the median of the road while we were waiting for an clearing so we could cross. He jumped out of his parked white sedan, stoically walked into the middle of the road with arms out and stopped the traffic for us!!

And I think about the four cross walks that lead to the park near our hotel. It was so hard to get across them due to gaps that were open on each edge for water drainage. But one night it was all different. We were well practiced by then at getting Julius’ chair across the four gaps carefully so we wouldn’t break a wheel, but one day we just stopped and stood in the median across from the park strategising how to get the rest of the way across because construction workers had blocked the other side. I was agitated. What could be so important that the workers would block a cross walk? They saw us and both our groups just stared at each other. For a few seconds, no one moved. The foreman shouted something and the workers in orange vests came back to life, ran over and lifted us the rest of the way across, like we weighed nothing more than a helium balloon. We laughed and thanked them, and took a couple of photos, still unaware of what they were doing. The next time we returned, the crew was gone and, we saw what they had done. They installed drainage grates over the gaps, levelling the mounded crosswalk, a detail that made crossing the street to the park wheelchair (and stroller) accessible. How I wish they could have seen our faces to know how much their work meant to us. And what perfect timing that we had the opportunity to see each other during the process of the work they were doing. They saw, first hand how important there work was to others and we got to see the faces behind the work that helped us tremendously. These are the kinds of things we experienced throughout our time in Monterrey. It’s like you are trying to avoid a tide, or trying to get out of one that feels entrapping, but the tide is exactly where you need to be for movement to happen.

And, there are all of you, who have chosen to support us, whether you know us directly or not, with no guarantee this would help Julius. Like me, maybe you wanted to see if it was possible? Maybe the best of signs are in actions and shifts that happen through people. 

With only a few days left of our time and the last day of a textile show at the Mexican History Museum we ventured out again, back through the tunnel, to Monterrey City Center where a textile exhibit was on its last day at the Museum of Mexican History. I’m crazy about textiles and didn’t want to miss the show. The intricacy of designs in hand woven Mexican fabrics is extremely varied in colour, textures and themes. They are breathtaking to see in person.
Downtown Monterey is more crowded and congested than our side of the tunnel. Our driver dropped us at the curb and pointed to the angular building. He helped unfold the wheelchair stroller at the top of a wide, steep stairwell that descended down to the museum. I gestured to him asking where the wheelchair access entrance was. He didn’t know, but walked on up ahead and around, asking others. Then gestured to us where we needed to go.

Bridged walkways and benched concrete that zigzagged down to the river below met ferry boats that took turns picking up tourists. The driver assured me that was our way to the museum so we trusted and pushed forward, moving over the water to the opposite side. We followed a section of the river, as we rolled further away from the history museum, paralleling the large plaza in front of it. At the bend in the river we could see a strip of local vendors set up with their wares, mostly trinkets imported from China camouflaged as locally made by stickers with the Monterrey name taped on them. “Do you see a way across?” I asked my girl. “I think we have to go all the way over there,” she said pointing to the other side of the marketplace. I had to be really cautious about Julius’ chair because many of the stamped tiles that decorated the path beneath his wheels were broken and sharp. The water was to our right and to our left was a retaining wall that braced the patios of more buildings above our eye level.   

I was still manoeuvring Jules’ wheelchair around shards of tiles as we neared the end of the walkway, where the view widened, and I heard my daughter casually say, “That’s a stubby horse.” I looked up from the wheels, in the direction she was facing. On an upper tier of the plaza extending to the left of us, high on a chunky platform was a robust sculpture by Fernando Botero, a Columbian artists whose unmistakable paintings and sculptures are installed world wide. I was stunned, I hadn’t thought about my sign for days. “It’s green,” I said, almost in disbelief. “Oh yeah,” my girl chimed, “It is green!” She also hadn’t been thinking about our quest to find the green horse. The bronze metal of the sculpture had been through patination, a chemical process that gave the surface a distinctive green lustre. When I approached the piece, It towered over me. It’s colossal head framed by a cotton sky was majestic. Its face pointed downward and, like a noble guardian, it looked right into me, our noses pointing towards each other. The iconic figure could not have been a more fitting sign: me being an artist and my sign coming in this way- through a massive, rotund Botero sculpture that represented strength and nobility. Had Julius not been with us, we would have missed it. “Look, Jules!” I said, “It’s our green horse!” Both of my son’s eyes looked up with perfect coordination. “Are you crying, mom?” asked his sis. How could I not be?

Construction workers making the crosswalk wheelchair accessible, carried Julius across

Wednesday August 6, 2025
Connections and A Therapeutic Window
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There is a tunnel that runs through the Sierra Madre mountain ridge joining San Pedro Garza García to the rest of Monterrey Mexico. Wikipedia’s photographs of the tunnel are out-of date. The entrance to the long curving passageway is painted with a large black and white mural depicting figures that appear to be influenced by the rock paintings of indigenes people. Rain-bowing the entire lining of the tunnel is a geometric pattern of circles and semi-circles of colour artificially lit. In a snapshot they streak into blurred ribbons. Immediately on the other side of the ridge, the flavour changes. The pristine qualities of San Pedro with its polished sky scrapers, and shiny plazas are replaced with smaller concrete homes and local businesses painted in hues softened by the sun and worn on their edges. Fundidora Parque was our destination.

After two days in our hotel following treatment and exercises we were ready to go out and explore further. Uber offers larger vehicles that can manage us despite having no wheelchair ramps. It is physically demanding to transfer Julius into a car. The drivers are apprehensive watching us. With the help of Jules’ sister I am able to slide him into the back seat and hold him upright while she buckles the belt across him, snaps herself in and supports his body with hers. Although the chair collapses, it is still quite bulky. The equipment underneath and the seat cushion have to be removed for the chair to fit inside the hatchbacks. Julius has been clunked in the head a couple of times, but we have gotten better at the task.
Fundidora is massive and demonstrates what Mexican people value above all else- Family. In Parque Fundidora, capitalism takes a back seat. There is no fee to enter the park and all people with disabilities are free to visit the museums within. On the grounds, are very few places to purchase food and drink. Outside vendors are not permitted inside the park. Families can bring picnics and have family parties without a rental fee. We crossed no souvenir kiosks dotting the paths or gift shops within the museums.

Families here are large and multigenerational. Grand-parents are at the top of the family hierarchy with regard to respect and are an integral part of daily activities and all celebrations. Julius was well accepted without reservation or fear. One woman in the Children’s Museum was so excited when she learned that Julius could see the scarfs printed with different bugs, as they were sucked up into a transparent piping system that spit them out over our heads so they could waft down. You would have thought she was his grandmother! The kids squealed with delight trying to catch the cloths before their soft landings. Julius and his wheelchair right in there with them, never triggered a stall or stare, even when the bug-prints landed on him. We were surrounded with acceptance and belonging as we have been most of the time. In a nearby circular sandpit, we watched my daughter excavate “dinosaur bones” with a family of local children. None of the kids, the parents or the program guides were bilingual. Most locals do not speak any English, but it simply didn’t matter. Bones are bones.

The doctor at the Center told us Fundidora also has a river with boat rides, a hotel, a convention center a theatre, a design center and much more. We only managed one button-hole corner that included a wax museum where I had the chance to ask Diego Rivera why he couldn’t be a better husband to Frida Kahlo. It would take multiple visits to Fundidora to experience everything it has to offer. Jove says “It’s okay. We can come back.” But she says that about everything we’ve loved here.

Just after sunset, we were working our way out of park, past the huge Museum of Steel (a converted foundry). Its monumental outdoor sculptures infused with their utilitarian past were crusted in rust and patina. Crowds of families were just entering Fundidora and the wide paved areas that were barren when we arrived, had become active with bicycles and roller-bladers unbound from the heat of the day.
We were exhausted when we returned to our hotel, quickly crashing after showers and up again at 6:30 am preparing for another treatment at the Center where we meet new faces as families rotate out and others come in. Soon, we will be saying goodbye as well and I already miss the connections we’ve made.

I am reading another book. It’s long title is Melting Bone, Healing Tide; How to Reanimate Inertial Bone Tissue Through Therapeutic Touch; An Introduction to Biodynamic Skeletal Therapy. (Yeah, a mouthful) Now, that Julius is able to release his joints, I have the opportunity to use the techniques Dr. Scott Sternthal describes in depth. The book is a class in osteopathy and cranial sacral techniques that one of Julius’ physical therapist used to calm Jules’ severe neurological agitation, when he was about a week old. I remember it well, because nothing would stop Jules from wailing after he woke from his coma. His entire body turned beet red, his nose bled and the blood vessels in his face broke. We tried everything to calm him. Only this therapy given in the hospital by a young therapist named, Kevin, could settled Jules into a restful sleep when nothing else worked. Now, Julius’ treatments at NeuroCytonix has opened a therapeutic window that closed long ago. And it is imperative that I use this chance to continue supporting the improvements we’ve witnessed. One, I haven’t mentioned yet, are the painful muscle spasms we were dealing with often. They have disappeared since starting treatment with Cytonix and I have decreased Julius’ medication to manage them. As for Melting Bone, Healing Tide, I was drawn to the book by its title and only learned it is the same therapy Kevin used after I began reading its pages. I wonder if he is still a practitioner after all these years.

A therapeutic window is the optimal time for intervention following an injury or traumatic event. We are told the benefits Julius is experiencing now will continue for 6-8 months, possibly up to a year, and that we should use these upcoming months to continue stimulating Julius' brain and help with his neuro connection to his physical body. The exercises inspired by Sternthal’s book are very different from what I was doing previously. The physio manipulation is more about a collaborative practice between myself and Julius’ body rather than a forceful stretching of his limbs which always initiates a counter-action. Julius is now able to “give-in’ and he’ll even smile, laugh or fall asleep during the exercises, when I do them correctly.

​There is still so much to learn and I know managing our schedules at home with on-going disruptions is going to continue testing me without end. Here, we have experienced less obstacles even with a wheelchair, the luggage left at the airport, and the lost formula and medical supplies the airline still hasn’t recovered.  At home, our typical month of responsibilities, demands and distractions comes from all sides and never lets up. It’s been a remarkable gift to have uninterrupted and concentrated time with both of my kids. It is something we have never had before. I need to solve this as I fall back into multiple roles. My fear has shifted from coming here, to returning home.

Wednesday July 30, 2025
No Wheelchairs (or Dogs) Allowed
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We are half way through Julius’ Cytotron protocol. This science absolutely deserves attention. We were given letters from the doctor so that Julius will be excused from x-ray scans at the airport. Apparently, it will interfere with the treatment, which is meant to continue having positive impact over the next six months to eight months. The more I learn, the more fascinated I am and the more I believe that humanity should be delving deeper into the power of RFQMR and electromagnetic fields for a plethora of applications. Treatment centers utilising RFQMR therapy, for neurological disorders, and specifically for cerebral palsy, should be available throughout the USA. There are a lot of hurdles, a lot of expense and a lot for insurance companies to take on. Maybe those discussions are taking place. But obstacles should not stop us from advancing forward. I still cannot believe we are here and able to experience this. The families we have met have come from Mexico City, Hungary, Uruguay, Columbia, and the USA. NeuroCytronix does not have a platform for families to connect. As a matter of fact, Julius’ name has been replaced with a number for privacy. Imagine reading a research paper that included names of the participants. I consider us et al. and feel like we are involved in something far bigger than us. Still, it would be nice to have more connection with the other families so we can help each other with obstacles. We are only able to meet the handful that overlap with our scheduled time at the Center and those staying at the same hotel. As for obstacles, we certainly experience them on a daily basis.
Even with a nice pool, this hotel closes in on us. As contemporary and beautiful as the architecture in the area is, the environmental design falls way short of inclusive. Not only is mobility for a person using a wheelchair restricted, but even those of us who are ambulatory had better watch every step. I saw a large family walking along the bending road by the park. They were right in a blind spot of the curve with a stroller out in front! OMG! Crosswalks are scarce, if at all. Sidewalks are narrow, spotty, incredibly irregular, and end nonsensically. On the greater than 100 degree temperatures, It is brutal going anywhere on foot and especially when pushing a heavily loaded wheelchair. I cannot understand why the hospital right across the street is so difficult to access. Even people without disabilities will find themselves using crutches and wheelchairs.

On our twelfth floor of the hotel there are large single-light windows at the west and east ends of the long hall that is perpendicular to the elevators. My daughter, and I contemplated the traffic below the eastern facing glass, after our efforts to walk to the Walmart for some staples, only a few blocks to the south, proved to be near impossible. We dropped the back right wheel of Julius’ chair from the rugged, broken pavement and tall uncut curbs we had to navigate.

I kept “fixing” the wheel each time it spun out to the end of its axel. “We have to turn around, mom,” Jove repeated too many times. “We are not turning around. We are too close to turn around, now.” “But, mom!” “No! We got this, so please stop saying that! Walmart will have an auto shop. Someone there will know how we can to fix this.”

Walmart wasn’t much farther beyond the Costco parking lot that we crossed through. Most people paid no attention to us, until one man came running towards us and bent down to assist with the wobbling wheel. In English he said, “You are in Mexico now! (As if I didn’t know. We just navigated a left hand turn with a lame wheel on a hill of two way traffic with no cross-walk in a Spanish speaking country.) “No one here is going to help you!” He shouted, “No one here likes Americans.” “I am very sorry about that,” I said while he pushed the wheel back in and spun the locking clip that refused to latch.”Where are you going?” He asked. “We are going to Walmart. We will get something there to help with the wheel.” He pointed. “Oh It’s far. (It wasn’t) No one will help you. My own family has been separated. I cannot see them!” He was speaking very quickly. I could not make out everything he was saying, but I felt his anxiety and told him, “I understand’ without spilling fuel on his angst. I thanked him and continued on. “Watch the wheel” I told my daughter, “So I can watch for cars.” “Be careful!” the man shouted.

Both CostCo and Walmart overlook a hillside community of multicoloured concrete dwellings that Mayte told us about when she graciously took us to CostCo on our first day. This is where poor people live,” she said. I couldn’t help but compare the view from our hotel window onto the wealthier hillside benches where pristine, white houses striped my view, while the less fortunate houses were adorned in a spectrum of ragged colour. I considered how I painted murals on the back and side of our house before I could afford to landscape the property. Everything was sandy dirt that plugged up the screens and trailed into the house. I needed the color. I suppose the families on the painted hillside feel the same.
Walmart did not have an auto shop and no one there spoke a word of English. The presence of our Golden Doodle, Julius’ service dog, was less than welcoming. A short, stocky woman kept pointing at our Lilac, glaring into my eyes and ranting. Knowing the words she was saying wasn’t necessary to understand her content. The best we could do was to walk away from her, but she found us again and continued. Luckily, someone kind was willing to help us with the wheel. He didn’t really do anything more than push it on, just as we had been doing, but for some reason he managed to lock it into place and the wheel has stayed since. But, we chose not to make that walk again.

So, there we stood at the window of the twelfth floor strategising how we could cross the street to the side where the hospital grounds and plaza were. “You know,” I said, “If we time it right, and take two lanes at a time, we could make it across.” “No” Jove shook her head without question, “uh uh.” “Just watch for a minute,” I urged. There were three main thorough-ways comprised of two lanes each and a fourth lane on the other side that veered off from the rest. Between each section of blacktop were grassy plantings traced in curbs. From our view above, the curbs looked flat, but I knew that down below they were 8-10 inches high. We could surely get across the two outer sections where the traffic moved slower with gaps between clusters of cars. But those center double lanes moving in opposite directions were for non-stopping traffic, heading straight through this area. Those cars traveled much faster and had little distance between. “Right there!” I said, pointing to a gap in the slower lane on our side. “There’s an opening, see!” Jove watched “Yeah, but what about the middle lanes?” We kept looking, studying. “Maybe there? After that black car?” I said, but in a second the opening was gone. “MOM!! NO!! WE’LL DIE!” She’s very dramatic. I scoffed, still analyzing. But she was probably right. Even if we made it across the pavement, we’d ram the curb. There was no shoulder. No breathing room. And the grassy area was mounded high. If we got that far, we could fall backwards lifting the front of the chair. Making it across would be a Hail Mary at best and then we’d need the same odd luck to get back. “Hmmm…We’ll figure it out” I finally said and we turned around to go back to our room where Jules and Lilac waited.

Two days later, we successfully made it across the street. Victor, the bellman and shuttle driver told PJ, another parent here with her daughter for treatment, texted me that there was a way across through the underground parking garage. “An underground sidewalk? There is an underground sidewalk!” We searched for it. The security guard insisted there was no walkway across. Then, I got a little more information from PJ who texted, “ Go toward the park and around the police station.” Huh? The police station is a curved building with a circular flange at the bottom that, I suppose, is considered a sidewalk, but it is way to narrow for Julius’ wheelchair and there are three high curbs to hurdle and curving, blind traffic to consider. “We aren’t doing it mom!” Jove, would not even consider trying. “This makes no sense,” I said, “Stay here and I’ll go over myself to check it out. I turned to the right and found nothing but obstacles. I crossed back to the kids and Lilac and we returned to our room. Hmpf.

The following day, we tried again, reading PJ’s text very carefully, following exactly. ‘Take the parking garage elevator down to S2, go left, head towards the park, and around the police station.’ “Okay, so instead of going to the right around the station, let’s try going to the left around,” I said, “but from here, we’ll stay on this side of the street, just the same as when we go to the park.” Jove was listening carefully, but was clearly doubtful. I continued with the first part of the plan. “Then, when we get there to the road that runs along the park, we will look around the police station and see what’s there.”

My daughter was very reluctant. We had been up that street in the opposite direction when we walked to the HEB grocery store where they were holding my rolling suitcase full of food. I accidentally left my credit card back at the hotel so I had to walk back and get it. The kids were watching TV and I insisted the walk wasn’t so bad and that they could come with me, Lilac, too. Lesson: No dogs, even service dogs, are allowed in grocery stores in Mexico. I did not know this. That must be why the woman at the SuperWalmart was so mad at me. But, I brought the kids because I was worried about leaving them again and the route really didn’t seem that bad when I was by myself. I was wrong. “Mom, you said this was gonna be easy!” Jove complained as the heavily packed wheeled luggage toppled from one side to the other. Somewhere along the way, two of the raw eggs smashed inside. “You should have told me there were eggs in there, mom. I wouldn’t have been kicking it.”

Although, we did our best in the heat, it would have been better to leave the kids in front of the TV for that mission. On our way back, another narrow chunk of sidewalk, just over a curb, refused to let us on and we found ourselves jammed with Julius’ toes caught in a chain link fence with a large area of thicket growing on the inside of it. He started to cry and my daughter yelled in distress. I knew, if I were to let go of the chair’s push handle we would fall backwards because the back wheels weren't fully on the skinny sidewalk. I froze in place for a split second, concerned about losing that back wheel again. Before I could adjust, a young guy appeared from around the curve of the wire fence and nearly collided with us. He was as surprised to see us as we were to see him. He immediately grabbed the front of the wheelchair, dislodging Julius' toes and allowing me to back the chair up just enough without falling off the curb. In one coordinated movement, the three of us turned the chair in the direction from which he came and he continued on past us. "Gracias!" we called out all sweaty. "De nada," he said as if it weren't a big deal. I leaned in toward my daughter and said, “He came out of nowhere, right when we needed him! You know, that's how the angles work." Her stressed face softened and she mustered a flush smile.

Back by the police station, I realised that PJ must have not yet attempted to get her daughter in her wheelchair across the street, when she sent me that text. It became clear that the directions she was passing onto us from Victor, she hadn’t actually tried. And Victor, who speaks English fluently wasn’t great about directions. When he shuttled us to the Aquarium, not far beyond the Walmart, he failed to tell us that the aquarium was located inside the shopping mall, an important detail. None-the-less, I was determined. The four of us were going to get across the street without harm. The road that would get us there dipped beneath an overpass. There was a sidewalk wide enough and even enough, except for a traffic sign cemented right into the middle of it. An oversight that happens often, even in the US. With that barrier, we’d surely fall off into the street. “Ok, one step at a time,” I said, “The traffic on this street is not bad and moving slower. We are going to walk in the street, tucking close to the curb, pushing in the same direction as the traffic. There is enough room for the cars to go around us.” Down we went, under the overpass and when we came up we saw it- a round-about with traffic lights!. No sidewalks, but we could move with the traffic and get to the other side on a green light.

Starbucks, here we come! I flagged it in my google maps. But, we didn’t exactly make it that easily. We, unknowingly, took the back road behind the sky scrapers, expecting to come out the other side. Instead we found a sanctuary for dogs with lots of shaded trees and land where they could roam. The dogs were as curious to see us as we were to see them. They were gorgeous, well cared for and very happy. When we found ourselves behind the hospital, with no way into the grounds we turned back, said hi to Lilac’s friends again and worked our way over from the front side. “But mom, how are we going to cross over to the plaza?” By then my hands were slipping on the handlebar from my sweat. “One step at a time Adajove. Otherwise, it’s all too much. Lets get Starbucks first and cool down.” Inside the hospital Starbucks, we ran into Mayte, who was about to get another family from Columbia ready for their intake. The kids and I found a reasonably easy opening to the plaza and spent the rest of the afternoon there, where Jules and Lilac napped, I read, and Jove played in the fountains. “I love it here, mom! It’s my favourite place!! Can we come back?” (She really did say that.)

Later, a text came through from PJ, who had a gift card for Starbucks and was also trying to get over there. It read “These sidewalks are awful. (Mad emoji face) Holy Crap. How the heck did you do that w Julius? Lord have mercy!”
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The photos are of us in the medical plaza across the street from our hotel. I absolutely LOVE those rockers!! I want to bring one home, but traveling with one chair is already enough. They are called Huey Rocking Chairs designed by artist Anthony Allan. Allan should extend his design skills to encourage the city to make some curved, wheelchair accessible walkways don’t ya think?