Who is Pedro and why does he live in South Carolina?

Hello Friends-

Rob and I made it safely to Stockbridge, MA Saturday evening making record time. The distance in total was 1500 miles and took about 25 hours. The trip was scenic and the drive was fun. The first day we stayed in a city in Virginia called "Hopewell," very appropriate I thought as a mantra for my impending journey. We saw interesting billboards on the first day including about 30 advertising "Pedro's South of the Border" and various intriguing headlines such as "Pedro has flamingos," "Pedro says shalom," "Pedro is great with kids," "Motor Hotel at Pedro's".... huh? Unbeknownst to us Pedro is an amusement park of sorts with a hodgepodge of activities south of the border of North Carolina. The build up to it was much more exciting than the actual place so if you ever make a drive up the northeast don't get sucked into the Pedro trap. We passed the time in the car by my singing, Eakhart Tolle's "New Earth" on tape and making up games. We made a game out of nicknaming each state we drove through based on our experience in it. Some popular ones were "Take your money New Jersey" (because of all the tolls), South Carolina was "The state of Pedro" (obvious), Delaware was "Blink and you missed it" and Florida was dubbed "The morning cry." We were very excited to make it into MA so early. This gave us time to explore the bed and breakfast we booked, which is beyond adorable. We didn't realize how small and rural Stockbridge was until we tried calling around to find a place to watch the Mayweather boxing match. We called over 15 places in and around town with no luck. The people here hadn't even heard there was a fight tonight at all. Some tried to console us by inviting us to watch the Kentucky derby instead or participate in karaoke. Needless to say my poor husband was out of luck and had to follow the match through updates on espn.com. When we drove out for dinner each house was about a quarter of a mile apart and the little town is no more than a strip of country stores with one gas station, one pharmacy, an authentic bakery and a few shops. I am seriously in the middle of nowhere!!! I find this exciting though. It gives me the chance to take a nice deep breath in... I feel swallowed up by nature here. The trees are breathtaking and larger than life. I will definitely hug one soon. I check into Kripalu tomorrow and the true adventure begins. I will update the blog weekly, most likely on Sundays. Stay tuned and thanks for sharing in this journey with me.