August 11, 1996

We let the border fiasco fade away and became engulfed in the beauty of Bulgaria. The rolling hills of sun flowers and corn fields free of heavy industrial plants, the clean air, the good roads conditions were all a refreshing change over Romania. We drove 100 kilometers this first night most of it during the golden hour; that time at dusk when the sun sits low and spills gold onto the fields, red into the sky and pink shadows over the hills. Donkey carts that sat in fields of wheat looked sureal. We stopped for the night at a non-stop Litex gas station and sat with the curtains pulled until the last trace of that sun disappeared. There was a construction site at the gas station; it wasn't particularly pretty, but until the neon lights above the gas pumps flicked on it felt somehow romantic. In the morning we will drive west to Veliko Tarnovo. The scenery in the full sun, we're sure, will be just as beautiful.