Vote for Pedro.

Aberdeen, NC – Passing each other like old acquaintances, the sun set with a tip of its cap to the fog that rose over crops of corn, cotton and tobacco as we drove along highway 501 in North Carolina this evening. Deer glanced casually at the road before continuing to pillage the farmer’s field.

It was my favourite part of the drive on our trip so far.

Earlier in the day, large colourful billboards broke up the endless green of pine trees for a couple hundred miles leading to the North-South Carolina border. Containing bad puns, offers for the biggest fireworks store in the world and a Mexican caricature named Pedro, the signs were rendered all the more hilarious by the giddiness of having sat in the car so long through storms and otherwise unchanging scenery.

The billboards for South of the Border, SC are remin- iscent of those that guide you through the barren landscape to Wall Drug in South Dakota, albeit with a distinct Mexican flavour. The latter, however, bears the slogan “Where the heck is Wall Drug?” South of the Border, advertising an amusement park, arcades, restaurants (“You never sausage a place”) and hotels makes you ask “What the heck is it?” Not to mention, “Is that what it’s really called?”

Finally running out of signs, we approached South of the Border and were greeted by enough neon per capita to make Nevada blush and a giant sombrero tower. Of course we were.

Somehow (and perhaps unfortunately), we didn’t stay.

The Beauty of History.

Charleston, SC – Right down to the Battery, the quiet of Charleston's historic district is punctuated only by the occasional sharp strike of horseshoes against the stone streets. These are, after all, just people's homes.

In the carriages that follow, tour guides provide historical anecdotes in a slow, welcoming drawl as effortlessly as if they are telling you about a family member while sitting on one of the city's many verandas, sipping a cool sweet tea. You get the sense even the horse would even be dignified in carrying-out its business.

Palmetto- lined roads frame colourfully painted homes that boast the impressive gardens and ornate ironwork for which Charleston is known. Outside each, it seems, is a placard describing how the centuries-old edifice was once a market, then a school, a government building, a hotel and how it is now a single-family home. It's rare to find such untainted, uncommercialized beauty in today's cities.

In some ways, it is also hard to imagine this city absorbed the blows of the revolutionary war for three years and that the civil war started here. It is also the birthplace of the submarine.

What a gorgeous city, wrapped in a history text.

Nags Head to Charleston.

Charleston, SC – Signs warning of bears lined the road along Alligator river as we took a gorgeous drive south from North Carolina’s coast this morning. Alas, we didn’t see any, though the area is apparently one of the last remaining strongholds on the eastern seaboard for black bears.

Their hiding may have something to do with wearing a fur coat in this humidity.

Cutting inland toward South Carolina after making our way through Roanoke Island, we threaded through a series of long bridges – including a draw bridge that stood at full mast to let a pair of sailboats through – that stitch the many islands to the mainland.

We stopped in the former Swiss settlement of New Bern, NC, which is most notable for being the birthplace of Pepsi Cola. The unassuming pharmacy in which Caleb Bradham concocted the fizzy drink during the 1890s exists as a Pepsi shop today and even serves fountain pop.

Reaching South Carolina, we hoped to see some of the old plantation houses, but had our hopes dashed every time we saw the word ‘plantation’ on a sign – it seems the term is used for everything down here: golf courses, communities, shopping malls, hotels and gas stations. Nothing like embracing your history.

We also had our first stretch of poor weather tonight as we appr- oached Charles- ton. Severe storms are flexing their muscles along the coast north of here, but we experienced some torrential downpours along the way, including one that caused the temperature to drop 12 degrees in the span of just five minutes.

Making it into the city later in the evening after some 700 kilometres on the road, some locals recommended Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q and we were very pleasantly surprised by the southern chain restaurant’s offerings. The little cheddar corn muffins they brought out are among the most delectable things ever. It also afforded me the opportunity to finally have some pulled pork on this trip after several days of seafood.

Both of those options, my friends, make me very, very, happy.

Been there Dune That.

Nags Head, NC – With a great gust from the puffed cheeks of a frowning sky, our plan to go hang gliding in Kitty Hawk – where the Wright brothers flew the first airplane – was blown from the air today.

We had registered to be towed up to 2,000 feet by a small airplane and to glide over the coast for fifteen minutes, but the winds were too strong and threatened to carry us out to sea. Better than safe than sorry, they say – after all, my name is hardly Icarus.

Instead, we went hiking in Jockey’s Ridge State Park, which is home to the tallest natural sand dune system on the eastern seaboard, varying from 80- to 100-feet high. With the sun beating down, we climbed (and climbed) and ran across the dunes as colourful kites snapped to attention in the sky overhead. It was a magnificent sight and, remarkably considering the parks back home, free to enter. Bonus.

With the heavy humidity, though, sand bound to sweat and I soon resembled a giant sheet of 60-grit sandpaper.

Despite not being a driving day, we still inadv- ertently ended up covering 500 kilometres in the car as we drove throughout the area and along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore to the Hatteras lighthouse, which is more than 100 years old and, in a major feat of engineering, was moved to a new location in 1999. At 208 feet, it is the tallest lighthouse on the eastern coast. What is it with us and ‘tallest' places today?

Throwing an ‘oldest’ to match, we had dinner at Sam & Omie’s in Nags Head, which opened in 1937 and is the oldest restaurant in the Outer Banks. We also had the best crab sandwich at Fat Boyz in town and spent some time down at the beach this evening.

on nature's marquee

The pelican dances
with the curled fists of waves –
fury vs. finesse,
the rising tide vs.
swoop and glide:

a vintage pugilist’s dream.

vii.29.9

Boogie-ing, But Not Bored.

Nags Head, NC – The mercury crept north to a thick 27 degrees even without help from the significant humidity. And the clock had only just struck 9 a.m.

With that notice plastered in sweat to our arms, we knew were in for some heat today, but it was nothing a dunk in the ocean boogie boarding at Nags Head couldn’t solve.

The day began with a drive through Virginia, where we stopped at the Calvin L. Adams Country Store, an eclectic little shop in an area where the first peanuts were grown in the United States. With antique cleavers, farm implements and cigarette labels lining cluttered walls, there was plenty to look at. And, to an outside observer, much of it seemed pretty random. Cardboard boxes of country cured ham (heads) rested by the front door, giving the air a spicy smell. Stuffed dear and bear heads stared back at us, their gaze frozen despite word bubbles taped below. Groceries, peanuts, baked goods and small boxes of seed cotton filled every nook and cranny.

We also chuckled at a couple signs along the way:

• A sign between Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia advertising a “Pork, Peanut and Pine Festival.”
• A gun store in Ivor, Virginia with a sign that said, “If size is an issue, get a bigger one. Get a .45.” (Got to love the right to bear arms.)
• A bumper sticker that said “Hunt WITH your kids, not for them,” in Windsor, Virginia. (Let’s hear it for family values.)
• Another bumper sticker with "Oh no no no" and a crude caricature of Barack Obama with an X through it. (Could it be we're in the south?)

After a fun drive through the Virginia country- side and along the North Carolina coast, we arrived in the Outer Banks and promptly found our great bed and breakfast, the Relax Inn, in Nags Head. Highly recommended. After an oyster po’ boy for lunch and a trip to the beach to boogie board and otherwise succumb to the crashing waves while large pelicans swooped in for a snack, the day was complete.

Not to mention a success and, at long last, an opportunity for a break.

Volant to Virginia.

Glen Allen, Virginia – Between brick homes with more history than my country, cicadas shrill like car alarms. The air is heavy, but breaks at dusk. Richmond, Virginia carries itself with an understated charm: a tall marble and brass statue of (Southern) civil war hero, General Robert E. Lee, looms over a central roundabout and the streets are lined by mature trees and magnificent colonial homes. Incongruously, a significant number are boarded up. Virginia Commonwealth University’s buildings branch out into the community’s narrow, streets and past a disproportionate number of tattoo shops.

It was a nice evening for a drive, particularly as the sun set across a vast sky, wispy and coloured like cotton candy.

We arrived in Virginia after 688 kilometres of driving through Pennsylvania’s gorgeous rolling hills, a brief jaunt into Maryland and a slow crawl through Washington D.C.’s traffic. Here, a crab cake sandwich awaited.

Earlier in the day, we visited the community of Volant, PA, which purports to be an Amish community, but really seemed only to be an attempt at commodifying the ‘other’ (how many true Amish products contain xanthan gum?). It was quaint, but seemingly manufactured, with kitschy crafts and manicured window boxes.

Under the Shoulders of Giants.

Meadville, PA - From London to Woodstock, tall shoulders of darkened clouds loomed menacingly in front of us, backlit by short, staccato flashes. But the sky shrugged as we turned south toward bluer horizons.

Headed to the Outer Banks in North Carolina - and possibly as far as Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia - we took to the road this afternoon and put 427 kilometres under our tires, to just north of Pittsburgh.

Neglecting to check that the GPS was set for “fastest route,” rather than “shortest route,” Hamilton became our foil as we negotiated construction and the madness of Steeltown’s streets. Not the prettiest way to begin a journey.

Farther along, a series of rainbows arced over the trees that lined upstate New York’s rolling roads – prisms set against the charcoal-smudged canvas above. On the I90, the best sign of the day advertised “Fireworks and Karate Supplies.” Only in America.

Not until the last half hour did the rain catch us as fog seeped from the forests and a pink smear descended in the sky. At that, the tires stopped spinning for the day.