Stranded at the Drive-In....



Here's a great pic my sister took of the iconic sign while we were waiting to get in. We just MAY have been a little overeager since we got there an hour before they open the gates. Oops.



Okay, we weren't stranded (but we sort-of almost were, more about that later), but I bet you have that song from Grease stuck in your head now. Ha!

Sadly, the Cottage View Drive-in is closing at the end of the month. It's been open since 1966! I've been meaning to go all summer, and this past weekend's weather was perfect! Plus, there were two good movies showing. Score! A lot of times there's one good movie and one that is just meh.

A rainbow! It's hard to see but there are a passel of kids running around the field in front of the screen. They were playing tag and frisbee. The young teens were forgetting to look cool, giving piggyback rides to the little ones. I guess some things don't change.

When I was kid in the eighties, we would get to go to the Drive-in sometimes. I think it was because it was cheap (you paid by the carload, I'm pretty sure) and if one of us kids (or all of us) got drowsy we could crawl into the back seat (or the way back in the stationwagon) and sleep. Sometimes we would get Wendy's kids meals for dinner (yeah, frosties!) on those nights (I remember it as every time but that's probably not true.) I remember seeing one of the Stars Wars movies there (can't remember if it was Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi - frankly, I probably fell asleep in the middle) and E.T. the Extraterrestrial.



This is a still my sister captured from the short film "La Luna". It was funny and beautiful. You can see it on Pixar's website: http://www.pixar.com/short_films/



It makes me sad to see all of the old drive-ins closing. I'm sure they aren't big money-makers. They certainly aren't high-tech. Drive-ins are much more family-friendly than a regular movie theater (kids can run around and play when they get too antsy, you can talk during the movie and not bother your neighbors, you can bring food in) and they foster more community spirit. I enjoy Netflix as much as the next gal but there is something magical about waiting til dusk and then watching a great movie on the big screen with stars twinkling overhead. 

At the end of the second picture, we got ready to go and realized our car battery was dead. Apparently, this happens all the time and the staff goes around and jump-starts the cars. Ha! Luckily, the nice fella next to use offered to help us out, so we didn't even have to wait. He finished packing up his coolers and chairs, tucked his kids into the back seat, jump-started the car and sent us on our way. See...there's that community spirit I was talking about.