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.