Back From Spring Break!

The Matthews Family is just back from Spring Break, which we spent for the third year in a row in beautiful Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, at the Disney resort in Shelter Cove.


Allow me to say thank goodness for the Disney Vacation Club - After resisting temptation for many years, we finally bought a membership in Disney's time share program three years ago - mostly because Disney was selling my radio station, and I wanted to join while I could still get an employee discount.


The timing of the purchase was even more fortuitous than I had planned, because it now allows me to continue to vacation with my family, even after the elimination of my job. We had a great time in Hilton Head, and it was nice to enjoy a deluxe resort without having to worry so much about how much everything cost. It also didn't hurt that gas was about two bucks a gallon!


Just a few random thoughts about our trip...


It's incredible to me how much congestion there is on I-95. We managed to make pretty good time during our drive, but we still experienced several slowdowns caused by the sheer volume of traffic - even in the middle of nowhere! I-95 is still just two lanes in each direction for the most part all the way from Petersburg, VA through the state of South Carolina, and since most of its users are merely passing through, there's little incentive for the states to pony up the dough to expand the lanes. Perhaps a little stimulus $$$ can do the trick?


Speaking of $$$ - when I die, I want to be resurrected as a TV chef. We took a drive over to Savannah, Georgia, just so Robin could check out "Lady and Sons", the restaurant owned by Food Network star Paula Deen. Paula Deen is a chef who firmly believes that any recipe - whether it be Jello or Spaghetti and Meatballs - can be made better by adding a stick of butter. And God knows America loves its butter! The restaurant is a golden butter gold mine!


Here's the normal routine for getting into "Lady and Sons" for lunch. You need to line up outside the restaurant at around 7:30 or 8 am. Starting at 9:15 or so, a hostess comes out and starts taking reservations, and seating starts at 11 am. Lunch and dinner typically sell out every day, and the adjacent gift shop is packed with people, too.... especially when one of Paula's sons comes in to pose for pictures and to sign autographs, which one of them did while we were there.



We did not have to do any of that early-morning stuff to get in. We were able to use another method to reserve our spot. I won't go into details, but frankly - we lied to get in the door. Once we were seated, we enjoyed our lunch very much. Most people get the southern buffet - For 14 bucks, you get all of the Fried Chicken, black-eyed peas, butter beans, green beans, mashed potatoes and mac & cheese that you can eat, washed down with syrup-like southern sweet tea. It was all delicious and reasonably priced. But trust me. If you ever have the chance to wait all day to eat at Paula Deen's buffet - it's NOT worth the trouble!



We had fun just hanging out at the resort, which is really kind of like a summer camp for families. They have lots of activities... Robin made a pillow and tie-dyed a t-shirt. Spencer made a shark tooth necklace. We went to a campfire, complete with camp songs and s'mores. And we spent a glorious spring day sitting by the pool, where the kids swam, Robin crocheted, and I honed my word skills with the New York Times crosswords. We also attended a pool party, where Spencer (with some help from Dad) serenaded the crowd with a raucous karaoke of "Sweet Caroline".


On the way home, after sleep-driving from Petersburg to Fredericksburg, Virginia, I finally pulled off of I-95 for a big cup of coffee. Sleep-driving is scary stuff in a 20/20 hindsight kind of way - especially when you are doing it at around 80 miles an hour! I simply don't remember much about driving that distance... Thankfully, it was after midnight, and there were not many cars on the road. Slapping myself to stay awake could only take me so far, so when I saw an exit sign for Wawa, I surrendered to my body's cry for caffeine. I LOVE Wawa! If you've never been to one, just think of a 7-11 that's three times the size with three times the selection and cheaper prices. I wish we had them around here in the Maryland suburbs!


Now that we're home, it's back to the grind - and to the welcome rhythms of everyday life. I did not blog during vacation this year, despite the fact that I had a laptop with me. I just found, pretty quickly, that doing routine stuff, like blogging, was going to make my vacation more routine.


I'm happy to be back!

RERUN - Pedro Sez - Visit South Of The Border! (Just Don't Get Out Of The Car!)

From March 30, 2008:

The distance between Hilton Head Island, South Carolina and Brookeville, Maryland is 617 miles. I know this for a fact because I drove every single blessed one of them on the family's return home from vacation. For the first third of the trip, I, like so many before me, passed the time reading billboards every couple of miles like this one...




For those of you who've never had the pleasure of driving through the Carolinas on I-95, South of the Border might be a bit difficult to describe. The massive tourist trap, which sits just South of the North Carolina/South Carolina border(get it?), includes a gas station, several restaurants, souvenir shops, fireworks stands, a motel, mini-golf course, amusement park and even a store selling pornography and sex toys.... I would describe the theme as "pre-politically correct 1950's Wetback kitsch". The mascot for South of the Border is Pedro, a Mexican equivalent of a Negro lawn jockey or Chief Wahoo, the idiotically grinning mascot of the Cleveland Indians. Pedro is a caricature - perhaps what our parents might have thought a Mexican looked or sounded like. His billboards "speak" in a thick Mexican accent, like this one -




In fact, I wonder whether"South of the Border" might be what Corey Stewart and his anti-illegal immigrant crowd in Prince William County picture as their own version of Hell!


It's probably been 25 years since I last stopped at South of the Border, and it might be that long before I stop again, but I couldn't resist passing through, and taking a look around. Sadly, "SOB" has seen better days. Even in the middle of the day, much of the place was shut down, even though it was spring break. Many of the buildings were in disrepair, and it seems many other local businesses that once leached off of the tourist mecca have turned the area into a Tijuana ghost town. Just beyond "SOB", we saw boarded-up car dealerships, shutdown sex shops, and other dingy nightspots that once presumably used the allure of South of the Border to bring in customers. Sadly, it seems time has passed Pedro by... But we'll always have his billboards!

Damn You, Delaware!

An angry shake of the fist this morning to the State of Delaware for failing to fix its chronic problem on I-95 through the state - an eight-mile stretch of Hell known for its mind-numbing toll booth delays!

The Matthews family made a required trip to New York over the weekend, and we managed to avoid any problems in the First State on the way north, primarily because we were out of the house by 6:30am and through "Hellaware" by 8 am. However, there was little we could do to avoid the state on the way home.

We cruised across the Delaware Memorial Bridge at around 5 pm Sunday, and managed to cruise along at around 70 mph until we got to the Delaware rest stop, where we hit the wall - a three and a half mile, 40 minute back up to pay our toll.

Now, there was, to the far left, a "dedicated" lane "exclusively" for EZ-Pass users, but this was no bargain for the first two and a half miles, because there was so much traffic, it didn't really matter who had a toll transponder and who didn't. Eventually, as we moved closer to the toll booth, I did move over to the dedicated lane, and we did managed to pick up speed as we went through the EZ=Pass lane. I would bet that people without EZ-Pass easily faced a 70 - 80 minute wait to get through the booth!

Which leads me to ask a couple of questions... First - why would one ever drive to New York without owning an EZ-Pass? They used to be free, but now I think they are a dollar a month. Still - If you drive in the Northeast corridor of the US more than once a year, this has got to be one of the biggest timesavers and best investments ever!

Second - what can be done to fix this problem in Delaware? I have a couple of ideas... First - they should ease the pain by cutting it in half- just as they do in Maryland on both I-95 and at the Bay Bridge... Double the toll, and charge in only one direction. Charge at the turnpike going north, and charge at the Delaware Memorial bridge going south.

Next - charge people who pay cash twice as much as you charge EZ-Pass users - and put up big signs showing motorists the price difference. Then, double the number of "EZ-Pass only" lanes. You'll get people to convert to EZ=Pass and keep traffic moving better!

And finally - go the American way... and cheat! After botching about this on Facebook, my friend Eddie McGrath, who lkives in Wilmington, sent me instructions on how to avoid I-95 altogether in Delaware. I have already printed out the idirections and put them in my glove box for next time. Here they are:

Coming north, get off I-95 at rte 279 in MD--head toward Newark DE

Rte 279 turns into DE Rte 2. Turn right onto Rte 4 (Christina Hwy). When you get to Rte 896 (S. College Ave). turn right, then get onto I-95 north. It adds 2 miles and you avoid the toll.

From the north, get off I-95 at 896 north. Reverse these directions. Believe me, that DE toll is a rip off and totally avoidable."

So take THAT, Delaware! I love your tax-free shopping, but you can take your little strip of I-95 and kindly shove it!

Pedro Sez - Visit South of the Border! (Just Don't Get Out Of The Car!)

The distance between Hilton Head Island, South Carolina and Brookeville, Maryland is 617 miles. I know this for a fact because I drove every single blessed one of them on the family's return home from vacation. For the first third of the trip, I, like so many before me, passed the time reading billboards every couple of miles like this one...

For those of you who've never had the pleasure of driving through the Carolinas on I-95, South of the Border might be a bit difficult to describe. The massive tourist trap, which sits just South of the North Carolina/South Carolina border(get it?), includes a gas station, several restaurants, souvenir shops, fireworks stands, a motel, mini-golf course, amusement park and even a store selling pornography and sex toys.... I would describe the theme as "pre-politically correct 1950's Wetback kitsch". The mascot for South of the Border is Pedro, a Mexican equivalent of a Negro lawn jockey or Chief Wahoo, the idiotically grinning mascot of the Cleveland Indians. Pedro is a caricature - perhaps what our parents might have thought a Mexican looked or sounded like. His billboards "speak" in a thick Mexican accent, like this one -

In fact, I wonder whether"South of the Border" might be what Corey Stewart and his anti-illegal immigrant crowd in Prince William County picture as their own version of Hell!

It's probably been 25 years since I last stopped at South of the Border, and it might be that long before I stop again, but I couldn't resist passing through, and taking a look around. Sadly, "SOB" has seen better days. Even in the middle of the day, much of the place was shut down, even though it was spring break. Many of the buildings were in disrepair, and it seems many other local businesses that once leached off of the tourist mecca have turned the area into a Tijuana ghost town. Just beyond "SOB", we saw boarded-up car dealerships, shutdown sex shops, and other dingy nightspots that once presumably used the allure of South of the Border to bring in customers. Sadly, it seems time has passed Pedro by... But we'll always have his billboards!