It’s Day 211 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It took just a half hour to drive from the Starlite Drive-In Theatre south of Bloomington IN to the Holiday Drive-In Theatre south of Mitchell IN.

Actually, the Holiday is about halfway between Mitchell and Orleans IN. It opened in 1962, owned by George Webb and Theodore Stigall. In 1983, Robert Limeberry bought the Holiday and kept it running until he passed away. The current owner, Steve Wilson, bought the Holiday from Limeberry’s estate in the winter of 2005.

Wilson went one important step further, purchasing the Holiday’s land in January 2008. We’ve seen plenty of examples where drive-ins were forced to close because the landowner decided to sell. That didn’t happen in this dot on the highway surrounded by farm land. “We’re kind of lucky from the standpoint it sits in a corn field,” Wilson told the Electric Consumer in September 2008. “If it sat anywhere else, somebody would have had it torn down.”

The Holiday dodged another problem common to drive-ins this decade. Wilson launched a GoFundMe campaign in 2015 to raise the money for a digital projector. “We have started this Go fund Me page, to bring awareness to the high possibility of losing this theater,” it said. The campaign raised only a little more than $10,000, but before the start of the 2016 season, Wilson found an older digital projector from a defunct Hazard KY indoor theater, thanks in part to Jim Boyd, owner of the Van-Del Drive-In in Middle Point OH.

According to the Bedford Times-Mail (subscription required), the result was a huge success.  “Last year, we had probably the biggest April we’ve ever had,” Wilson said. And this year he opened earlier than usual, in mid-March, to take advantage of the buzz around the live-action Beauty and the Beast.

Speaking of buzz, I’ve embedded another drone video, again from last year. On this one, instead of hearing the whirring blades, the videographer added old-time movie scratch effects because, uh, 1962 movie theater setting, uh … okay, I don’t get it. But the views make the video definitely worth watching.

This was the fourth time I’ve seen the latest Transformers installment, but the loud action makes it a pretty good drive-in movie. I couldn’t recall another drive-in that rents lawn chairs, but that might have been because of all the cinnamon sugar mini-donuts I ate there.

Miles Today / Total:  27 / 26150 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Transformers: The Last Knight / 126

Nearby Restaurant: The Millstone Dining Room in the Spring Mill Inn in Spring Mill State Park has a well-deserved reputation for some really great fried chicken. Add that it’s served in a buffet setting, and you’ve got two ingredients for a great experience, at least the way I rank these things. The dessert bar featured cornmeal pie and persimmon pudding. You can’t find food like this just anywhere.

Where I Virtually Stayed: The only real place to stay in Mitchell is the Spring Mill Inn inside Spring Mill State Park just east of town. My room was a lot different than what I’d find at a chain hotel, with a wooden rocker, a DVD player, a real quilt on the bed, and that’s about it. Good thing there was wifi, because cell reception was pretty spotty this far out in such a peaceful setting.

Only in Mitchell: The Mitchell Opera House opened in 1906 as the County Hall. In 1908, Menlo E. Moore took over its operation, renaming it the Opera House. For over 20 years, it hosted live shows, silent movies, and political rallies. The building had several other uses (storage, teen center, city hall) from 1930 to 1981, when it was reopened for occasional shows. After a full renovation, it reopened permanently in July 2015.

Next stop: Holiday Auto Theatre, Hamilton OH.

It’s Day 210 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It started with an easy one-hour drive from Franklin IN to the Starlite Drive-In Theatre south of Bloomington IN.

The Starlite opened in 1955, built by Carl and Ruth Stewart, who operated it for 48 years until Ruth passed away in 2003. According to his 95th birthday salute in 2014 in the Bloomington Herald-Times (subscription required), Carl “took pride in making the best popcorn and getting to know the families.”

The next owner was Cindy Jarvis and family. According to Indiana Public Media, “She wanted to have people think they were coming back to 1955 when they entered the drive-in, so it was her decision to not use the credit card machines.” Jarvis had to commute from out of town, and the Starlite’s had deteriorated a bit when it was sold in December 2013.

The next owner was a local guy, Mark Freeman, and his family. Indiana Public Media said he went right to work fixing panels on the screen, fixed the water and gas lines, added fresh gravel and made other cosmetic improvements. He added a fence to prevent patrons from walking in front of the projector, which inspired more work. “Once we did that,” Freeman said, “we started looking and said ‘Wow.” So we just made this patio here.” The patio, in front of the projection room, has tables and chairs.

Freeman also added credit card payments and a digital projector, which made it a little odd that he sold the Starlite this February. (I wrote about that when it happened.) Now the drive-in’s owner is the Brent Barnhart family and KJB Theaters. Barnhart told the Herald-Times, “I’m thrilled to take up the baton and run with it.”

Ah, it’s nice to have another drone video to share. This one’s was posted in June 2015 and is unusual that it’s audio is the real sound of the drone. I’ve been around enough of them to verify – they’re noisy little things.

I feel bad that my timing made me miss the Starlite’s many special shows – this coming Tuesday will be Forrest Gump, and Wednesday will be Enter the Dragon. But my wish from the night before went unanswered, and I sat through The Emoji Movie for the second straight evening. As I type two days after this movie’s release, IMDB voters have already pushed it to 22nd place of the worst of all time, six slots worse than Monster a-Go-Go and considerably worse than Battlefield Earth. Telling fact: Sir Patrick Stewart is the voice of Poop.

Miles Today / Total:  51 / 26123 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: The Emoji Movie / 125

Nearby Restaurant: How can you not love a place named Darn Good Soup? I mean, you know right away what you’re going to get, plus there’s homemade bread. I had the Cheesy Tomatillo followed by a scoop of chocolate lover’s ice cream. Simple and great!

Where I Virtually Stayed: The Hilton Garden Inn is a perennial favorite of mine whenever I find one, partly because my Hilton Honors status gets me free breakfast there. The HGI here is taller than most, six stories, and it has a parking garage. That’s all probably because Indiana University is so close by. My room had the full set of amenities, the staff was friendly, and the breakfast buffet was great.

Only in Bloomington: Indiana University in Bloomington features a 12,000-pound brain, “the largest anatomically accurate brain sculpture in the U.S.” near the entrance to its Psychology Building. In 2015, they made a good thing even better by adding an interactive lighting display which “will respond to movement and feature shifting colors and patterns, which will change with the seasons or to recognize special events, such as pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month or crimson for IU sports victories.”

Next stop: Holiday Drive-In Theatre, Mitchell IN.

It’s Day 207 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It would have been just as fast if I’d driven to Indianapolis then back down, but I spent an hour picking my way due east from the CenterBrook Drive-In, seven miles north of Martinsville IN, to the Skyline Drive-In Theatre east of Shelbyville IN.

The Skyline was built by Robert Wilcox and a partner in 1950, just after he left the Air Force, and has apparently been operating ever since. The Switow family theater company acquired it later in the 1950s, then the Dewitt family got it, probably in the 1970s. Indianapolis Monthly wrote that Joe Gaudin bought the Skyline “from its original owners” in 2009; although Wilcox passed away just last April, I find no evidence that he ever repurchased his creation.

This is a fun place with a full arcade, which every drive-in should have. It hosts music shows and 35mm film nights in addition to standard weekend first-run movies. This June, it hosted a Dog-a-Palooza drive-in night to benefit Shelby County Animal Shelter. In July, it held a fireworks show during intermission. When you see the friendly, inventive faces in their RealSceneTV YouTube video, embedded above, you’ll get a good idea of what the atmosphere is like here.

The Skyline likes to host dusk-to-dawn monster movie marathons; the next pair are scheduled for the last weekend in August. According to a December 2014 report by Indiana Public Media, the Skyline stays open until early December, closing each season with a free Christmas movie event. “Christmas movies are the only genre of movies that people will watch over and over again. Every year they’ll watch A Christmas Story or It’s a Wonderful Life, and it becomes a tradition for people,” Gaudin said. “My plan is for this to become a tradition for people.”

The last Wednesday of every month is Indie SINsations month, showcasing a pair of drive-in-worthy independent films. This night’s first feature was Pool Party Massacre, released this April, which is a perfect low-budget slasher parody / homage. That movie, plus the tenderloin between pretzels “pretzeloin” sandwich, made it a night to remember. For the last nine nights, I’ve seen movies that are different from each other; that’s my longest streak since Feb. 1. I hope it continues.

Miles Today / Total:  44 / 25934 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Pool Party Massacre / 123

Nearby Restaurant: I like quirky, quiet places to eat sometimes. I like donuts most times. Put them together, and you’ve got Linne’s Bakery and Deli, just a couple of blocks south of the town square parking lot. I enjoyed the Shelbyville steak sandwich with roast beef, Swiss and onions for lunch, then procured a few cake donuts for sustenance on the road. What a neat old place!

Where I Virtually Stayed: The Comfort Inn in Shelbyville was a real bargain, keeping a few $20s in my pocket compared to my usual chain hotels. It’s a well maintained older Comfort Inn, and my room had all the modern conveniences. Breakfast was the standard Comfort Inn of waffles, eggs, fruit, and the usual suspects. It was all I needed, and I appreciated the price.

Only in Shelbyville: In 1981, the Indianapolis Star wrote “Charles Major, the Indiana author who brought fame to Shelbyville with his novels of English knighthood and pioneer days in America is perhaps best known today for The Bears of Blue River.” (News to me; I always thought of the city as the rival of Homer Simpson’s Springfield.) Anyway, a statue of protagonist Brent “Little” Balser with arms raised holding two bear cubs graces the north side of the Shelbyville town square parking lot.

Next stop: M.E.L.S. at the Starlite Drive-In Theatre, Thorntown IN.