There is a drive in theater a few towns over from us that Matthew has been wanting to go to for a while. The kids and I have never been to one, and Matthew said it has been about 15 years since his last drive in movie! On a whim yesterday afternoon we decided to check and see what was playing and found out that this was the last weekend that Karate Kid was going to be there. Killian has been wanting to see that movie with his dad for months, so we spontaneously decided to head out there and catch the movie.
We got there about 7:30, and I was really surprised at how crowded it was! We managed to find a spot about 3 rows back and centered with the big white screen up front:
There were a lot of other families there, the lucky ones had pickup trucks parked backwards, with kids with sleeping bags and pillows in the beds. Thats the way to do it! There were also a lot of families like us who brought camp chairs, we set them up in front of the car and began the long wait:
The kids got a little bored after a while, and made faces at each other to pass the time:
A little after 9 Rowan and I were walking back from the bathroom when we noticed a marching band setting up! It was the craziest thing, they marched through a bunch of rows and wound their way up to the front of the lot and played drums and cymbals for about 15 minutes. Never having been to a drive in before, we thought maybe this was their weird way of announcing that the show was going to start soon!? Later the announcer said that they just happened to come along that night for the movie, and wanted to show off their skills to the crowd. Whatever the reason was, it was a fun surprise and the kids enjoyed watching and listening to them!
Hey!! Is that guy getting a free show over the fence in his cherry picker?!?!
It was probably around 10 when they started the show, they ran a bunch of old time drive in advertisements on the screen, and then a series talking about how they were trying to keep this drive in open because they were becoming pretty rare:
Finally the movie started, but immediately we had a problem. My car has automatic headlights which cant be turned off, so we had known that we wouldn't be able to sit in the car to watch the movie since they don't allow any lights. So we had brought one of the kids portable radios with us, but the reception was terrible and so fuzzy that we couldn't hear anything. After fiddling with it for a while, we gave up and turned it off. Luckily the cars neighboring us had their radios up loud enough for us to hear, although it certainly would have sounded better if ours had worked. Rowan didn't last long and crawled up on my lap about 30 minutes into the movie and promptly fell asleep. Once the sun went down it got cold really fast, and even with jeans and a hoodie on Rowan was shivering. Matthew dug around the trunk and found a blanket that her and I wrapped up in and that helped a lot. The movie itself was pretty good, and although it was a little cheesy at times we all enjoyed it.
The movie got out at close to midnight, and we managed to get everything packed up and get home by 12:30am. It was not fun driving those curvy back roads in the pitch black! I topped out at about 40 mph, and had a death grip on the steering wheel until we got back into "civilization". Rowan slept the whole way, and the rest of us crawled into bed and passed out as soon as we got home. It was a fun experience, but because of the long wait time, the radio reception problem, the bitter cold and the long drive home, I am not in a huge hurry to head back to the drive in any time soon. Still, I am glad we went, the kids had fun and now we know what the drive in is all about!
We got there about 7:30, and I was really surprised at how crowded it was! We managed to find a spot about 3 rows back and centered with the big white screen up front:
There were a lot of other families there, the lucky ones had pickup trucks parked backwards, with kids with sleeping bags and pillows in the beds. Thats the way to do it! There were also a lot of families like us who brought camp chairs, we set them up in front of the car and began the long wait:
The kids got a little bored after a while, and made faces at each other to pass the time:
A little after 9 Rowan and I were walking back from the bathroom when we noticed a marching band setting up! It was the craziest thing, they marched through a bunch of rows and wound their way up to the front of the lot and played drums and cymbals for about 15 minutes. Never having been to a drive in before, we thought maybe this was their weird way of announcing that the show was going to start soon!? Later the announcer said that they just happened to come along that night for the movie, and wanted to show off their skills to the crowd. Whatever the reason was, it was a fun surprise and the kids enjoyed watching and listening to them!
Hey!! Is that guy getting a free show over the fence in his cherry picker?!?!
It was probably around 10 when they started the show, they ran a bunch of old time drive in advertisements on the screen, and then a series talking about how they were trying to keep this drive in open because they were becoming pretty rare:
Finally the movie started, but immediately we had a problem. My car has automatic headlights which cant be turned off, so we had known that we wouldn't be able to sit in the car to watch the movie since they don't allow any lights. So we had brought one of the kids portable radios with us, but the reception was terrible and so fuzzy that we couldn't hear anything. After fiddling with it for a while, we gave up and turned it off. Luckily the cars neighboring us had their radios up loud enough for us to hear, although it certainly would have sounded better if ours had worked. Rowan didn't last long and crawled up on my lap about 30 minutes into the movie and promptly fell asleep. Once the sun went down it got cold really fast, and even with jeans and a hoodie on Rowan was shivering. Matthew dug around the trunk and found a blanket that her and I wrapped up in and that helped a lot. The movie itself was pretty good, and although it was a little cheesy at times we all enjoyed it.
The movie got out at close to midnight, and we managed to get everything packed up and get home by 12:30am. It was not fun driving those curvy back roads in the pitch black! I topped out at about 40 mph, and had a death grip on the steering wheel until we got back into "civilization". Rowan slept the whole way, and the rest of us crawled into bed and passed out as soon as we got home. It was a fun experience, but because of the long wait time, the radio reception problem, the bitter cold and the long drive home, I am not in a huge hurry to head back to the drive in any time soon. Still, I am glad we went, the kids had fun and now we know what the drive in is all about!