daily highlights: sugar

Maybe it's just traveling my body doesn't like, or maybe it's working, but already the 101-degree fevers are back. This morning in the dark, maybe around 4:30 -- which was only about half an hour before my alarm was supposed to go off -- the train came by the window of the hotel screaming. On the drive up every morning, in the dark, you can see these very firm plumes of sugar smoke coming from the sugarbeet factory, even though it's not yet the season. That's pretty much the best part of the day.

We found out today that the only establishment in town at the border, an extremely decrepit bar that serves you whatever they happen to have made, is apparently some kind of drug ring. Never mind anyway, as we've determined we're just going to eat our grocery store food for the rest of the trip, since it appears to be basically the only other option. Good thing I got candy corn at the grocery store. I'm just saying.