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Tex's recent post about the Buc-ee's phenomenon reminded me of it's predecessor: South of the Border. If you haven't stopped there, you really should. It's 50's Americana, run down and dirty, like it should be. If you've ever driven I-95 through the Carolinas, you've seen the billboards. Lots and lots of them, starting hundreds of miles away. It's a gas station (with a total of 8 pumps, as opposed the 200 or so at Buc-ee's). But South of the Border is not just a gas station.
The bathrooms at South of the Border are cramped, dark, and absolutely filthy. It also has an ice cream shop with the worst ice cream you've ever tasted (first time in my life I threw away an unfinished cone), and a motel, and a few restaurants, and a 200 foot high tower shaped like a sombrero, and a reptile zoo, and a putt putt course, and an RV park, and a video arcade, and a small amusement park, and a fireworks store, and a convention center, and a pool hall, and I'm not sure what else. And everything is old, run down, and kinda creepy.
I was traveling with my youngest daughter and asked if she'd ever stopped there. She winced and said, "Of course not!" I told her this was her lucky day, and drug her from the horrifying bathrooms to the concrete dinosaurs to the car wash and watched her roll her eyes. A European family on holiday asked her to take their picture next to one of the concrete sombrero-wearing dinosaurs. She said, "Um, sure..." Note the worn paint on the pole, the old billboards all over the place, the happy family doing tourist things, and a confused kid photographically recording this moment for posterity. Beautiful:
My daughter asked me why they did that. I said why not? I showed her the picture of my wife and I taking a selfie in front of a giant concrete Pedro (their mascot) from a couple years ago (see above). She just stared at the picture for several seconds.
Strangely, after this, she got more into the spirit of the thing.
I even took a picture of her later, which I thought would be most appropriately staged next to a dumpster:
As we pulled out of the parking lot, my daughter got a thoughtful look on her face and said, I swear: "I'm glad I saw that."
I slapped her on the knee and said, "THAT'S the spirit!!!"
So a few months later, I was traveling with my middle daughter, who was also foolish enough to admit that she had never been. So naturally I had to show her the wonders of South of the Border as well. She was less enthusiastic:
I love all the burned-out lights on the signs. A perfect reminder that time moves along.
There's a brand new Buc-ee's just a couple exits down the highway now. I don't know how South of the Border stays open. I presume that it soon will not. The parking lots will grow up in weeds. The kudzu will take over. In a few years, you won't know it was ever there.
But for now, it's beautiful. In a run down, crummy sort of way.
When Buc-ee's is 75 years old, it won't be this interesting. South of the Border is a treasure.
I don't know why, but it makes me happy.
Discussion (46)
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Somehow this reminds me of a billboard I saw once when driving east out of Arizona. Something like "Welcome to New Mexico. 80% Cleaner than Original Mexico."
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I grew up just down the road from it. Back in the day, it was a big ting, an amusement park hotel. When I convoyed from N.C. back to Homestead AFB, south of Miami years ago, the convoy stayed there. Finding a place that can hold all those deuces and towed operations vans wasn’t easy. My family drove down to have supper with me and to bring me a case of Blenheim ginger ale. It was dated then but made a lot of money selling fireworks. Maybe it is hoping that if it holds out long enough, it could became an historical landmark.
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That must be a Southeast phenomenon--never heard of either place. But it sounds like the only way that South of the Border can compete with Bucees (?) is by being adorably crappy.
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There is only one South of the Border location, on I-95, just south of the border between the Carolinas.
Buc-ee's is based in Texas. But they're building them all over the place. Lots of locations.
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