South Of The Border

What can I say- I am a FOOL for South Of The Border on I95 in Dillon SC. My earliest memory of this wonderland starts when I was in grade school and some lucky kids would come back from vacation with South Of The Border bumperstickers proudly stuck to their notebooks. I never knew quite what it was, but I knew it was good. Jump ahead 40 years to our first roadtrip to Florida and as we drove down 95, the billboards started. Pedro is the campy resort mascot. He is on their 175 billboards. Billboards that delight and entertain with sayings like "you never sausage a place" written over a giant sausage link, or Pedro's weather forecast- "chili today and hot tamale". They are wonderful. When we pulled into South Of The Border for the first time it is sensory overload. There is a 9 story Pedro to greet you. An amusement park. Six restaurants. Drug store, Pantry, Mexico Sop East and Mexico Shop West. Rocket City and Fort Pedro. Gas stations, a truck stop, and the South Of The Border Motor Inn, under the Pleasure Dome which also covers their indoor pool. Statues of all sorts of fun animals, real and imaginary abound. Neon, neon and more neon. Did I mention that it is campy? :)

Over the years we have had the opportunity to stay at our beloved South Of The Border and the one thing I cannot resist is photo- oping the dogs here with the statues. As we now only have our wonderful Bear, and he is a recent family member, this past year he had his first trip to Florida and consequently to South Of The Border. He is far less enthused looking then he felt I am sure- I mean, who wouldnt be thrilled to have daddy stick them under a giant ape, or onto a dinosaur!

And by the way, there is geocaching to be done here, the rooms are reasonable and really nice, the Sombrero Restaurant had wonderful mexican food, the amusement park rides were fun and just browsing the ten plus stores was enough to keep you busy! We can't wait to get back to see Pedro. To visit the website: http://www.thesouthoftheborder.com/