If you’ve ever traveled I-95 within 150 or so miles north or south of the North & South Carolina border you’ve seen the billboards…but have you ever experienced it? Experienced the enigmatic South of the Border? Well, after having daydreamed past Pedroland several times over the past several years I had to finally put curiosity to rest and answer the burning question.

Can I go to the top of the towering Sombrero? The answer is a resounding yes. For one US dollar you can ride the urine smelling elevator a little closer to heaven and take in a wonderful view of…highway I-95.

From the all-knowing Wikipedia…

South of the Border was developed by Al Schafer (1914-2001), who founded a beer stand at the location in 1950 and steadily expanded it with Mexican trinkets and numerous kitsch items. He had a great deal of success because of his location, which was immediately across the border from a dry North Carolina county, and grew his small business into what was, by local standards, an economic empire. South of the Border grew to over a square mile, required its own infrastructure, and had its own fire and police departments. Schafer became reclusive, building a large compound of interconnected houses outside the Dillon city limits. At South of the Border, he kept secret apartments hidden in the backs of restaurants and shops.

The entire motif of South of the Border can be described as intentionally camp.

The brim of the Sombrero provides a view of the vastness of Pedroland and the huge number of hotel rooms, the church and the convention center that make up this playground. If anything Pedroland is nice a distraction from the monotonous I-95 and a cheap source of gasoline.

Someday I shall return to South of the Border and shoot this park of wonder in the beautiful morning light (aka, the golden hour), but for now you can view the midday sun blasted photos in this Flickr set.

Taken from a Cessna 210 on Christmas Eve.

If there is one thing I’ve learned from flying airplanes it’s that you can never be overly prepared…for anything. The success, and safety, of any individual flight depends squarely on pre-flight planning.

What’s the goal of today’s flight? Staying in the pattern to practice landings? Short-field, simulated engine failure or cross-wind? Maybe the goal is standard maneuvers; S-turns or turns around a point. Whatever it is, if I haven’t preplanned and clipped a list to my kneeboard I could very well end up wasting an hour or two of flight time. With a hobbs meter keeping score with my checkbook, the lack of planning can get downright expensive.

Flying cross-country is all about pre-flight planning. Before embarking on every cross-country flight, a student pilot’s flightplan must be endorsed by an instructor. Weather en route, fuel burn, winds aloft, everything that could possible be a factor from take-off to landing is checked by the student and then by an instructor.

The reason I’m venting? Due to poor planning, not by yours truly of course, I missed a 5:00pm flight home to Raleigh-Durham (KRDU) from Baltimore-Washington (KBWI). By not having a simple map of the Baltimore area we encountered a 55 minute delay getting to the airport.

The next flight to RDU? 9:10pm. A nearly four hour wait.  No hockey game tonight.