When your stop at South of the Border is the highlight of your summer, what does that say about things? What does that say about your life?
Let's back up and revisit how we ended up in this situation.
After we left Florida in a profound state of grief from a failed adoption, we drove to Savannah. We ate our sorrows away with shrimp and grits, ice cream, and pralines. Then all three of us piled into a king sized bed in a hotel room and snuggled. Sometimes we were just silent. Other times we explained to Josiah that we were sad.
"It's ok Dada, there's another baby for us."
That's the last statement I heard as I drifted off to sleep. Josiah continued to kick me through the night. But it didn't bother me in the least. It reminded me of being pregnant that one time three years ago when he was breech and kicked my bladder until I wet my pants. At the time it was a horrible feeling. On this particular occasion I remembered it with a fondness and longing that may sound unusual to those who haven't experienced our particular difficulties in getting pregnant.
In the morning, Josiah and I looked at the river and tried to find dolphins. The ferry was operating. Wouldn't it be cool to go on a ferry ride? Just over there and back....
Let me digress a minute - Have you seen "Tiger King" yet? Several times throughout that train wreck of a documentary series someone will say "That's when things started to go wrong." Every time they said it I would think "THAT'S where it went wrong?!!!?" Things in "Tiger King" went wrong WAY before they acknowledged that it went wrong.
That's what we have with the ferry. That's where things started to go wrong. We just wanted to ride over there and back. No big deal.
Because of COVID they only take necessary passengers.
"GERMS RUIN EVERYTHING, JOSIAH. EVERYTHING."
"Yeah Mama! Everything!"
We packed up and checked out. We just wanted to get brunch. But the idiots in the car in front of us couldn't figure out how to get the gate to work on the parking lot. For the longest 5 minutes of my life. Finally they moved, we went ahead and they followed us out of the parking lot, almost hitting us so the gate wouldn't come down on them.
At brunch we went to this place that you could make your own pancakes right at the table. SO cool. Except they didn't have parking.
When we finally parked and got to the table to order our multigrain pancakes, they informed us that they don't make those anymore.
That's when we gave up. We ordered regular pancakes. We filled them with fruit and covered them in syrup which got everywhere, because we have a toddler. It took 10 minutes savage like struggling in the restroom to clean him up. Hours down the road I would find more syrup on the back of my arms from where I was wrestling that sticky syrup covered alligator in that bathroom.
We'd do anything to get out of Savannah. Anything to get to South Carolina. Then we saw the signs.
You've seen them before. They start appearing almost 100 miles outside of the location. Neon in color. Boasting newly remodeled motels, quotes from "Pedro", and flamingos.
We continued driving, neither one of us acknowledging them. Until I was hit with a memory - my parents never once let us stop at South of the Border. I've never seen the place. I've seen the signs, but I have no idea what it actually is.
I voiced this to my husband and he responded that he had stopped once. But just because he had to stop, it wasn't an intentional visit.
"They have flamingos."
"Yeah. Sort of..."
We kept driving.
"Real flamingos?"
"Well...."
"Aaron - look - 'You never SAUSAGE a place! That's hilarious."
Silence.
"You know what? That's it. We are stopping. We are going to South of the Border. We are going to do what your parents never let you do and you are going to be so impressed. I mean set your standards really low and you will be SO impressed."
My husband had caved in. It had been so easy. I recalled hours of riding to and from the beach as child trying to convince my parents to stop. Asking about the reptile lagoon. What is it? Seeing the giant sombrero in the sky and asking about it. What is in that giant sombrero? My parents solemn and unyielding in the front seat - we would never stop there. In fact, no stopping until we got to the beach.
"YEEEESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!! Josiah, you are going to LOVE this! And it's the only time you will ever be there, so really take it in. In the future when you ask to stop we will definitely not stop."
We parked outside the fireworks store. One of them. I got out of the car and stood in awe surrounded by an assortment of large plastic painted statues. There were maybe 14 "Pedros". Here's the wiener dog...
And the scariest gorilla Josiah's ever seen...
It was a ghost town. The only people we saw where the people who worked there and I'm pretty sure they have all lived on sight in the windowless motel since 1950. COVID can't ruin this for me. I was in heaven. Kitschy, crazy tacky, forbidden land of my childhood - I had arrived. Finally.
The stores boasted "hats from around the world." NOT false advertising, like my parents had told me. The hats were made in China, which is indeed on the other side of the world. So were the toys, and the shirts, and the fake Mexican pottery. They even had great discounts on discontinued products like this:
We crossed the street to see the flamingos. They were larger than life. Literally. Larger than real live flamingos. I know because we saw real live flamingos in Florida at the Sunken Gardens. I have a basis of comparison, so you can trust me.
Hungry and hot, we settled down for a meal in the Sombrero Room. It gets 1 star on Google reviews. No one was there. Just us. We had the whole restaurant to ourselves. The french fries and chicken fingers they cooked from frozen for Josiah were great. That's all I can say about that.
Then we got back in the car and hit that glorious sign - WELCOME TO NORTH CAROLINA.
Of course it felt like it took forever to get to the house from there. But I grinned the whole way home. I had finally seen it. Not just seen it, but been there, experienced it first hand. I have a whoopie cushion from the gift shop to prove it. My summer was complete. South of the Border was an amazing experience that I can now officially cross off my bucket list. It was the perfect end to the past 16 days.
We really know how to process our grief.
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