It’s Day 171 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. Thanks to well-placed interstates, it took me less than an hour and a half to drive from Wisconsin Dells to the Highway 18 Outdoor Theatre in Jefferson WI.

The Highway 18 opened in 1953 and operated until 1994. Lee Burgess bought it, refurbished it, and reopened in 2000. “It was pretty much on a whim that I bought it,” he told Isthmus.com in 2012. “Then I spent about a year restoring it. Everything’s pretty much the same as it was when it was built.” Except for that gorgeous little neon sign; he added that in 2005.

There are seesaws and jungle gyms for the kids in front of the screen, and in back of the screen there’s a bar for the grown-ups. But you can’t take the alcohol back to the viewing area (except, existentially, in your bloodstream) and you can’t watch the movie from the bar. Oh well!

I was happy to see some in-car speakers still on their poles. I understand that maintaining them can be a pain, but they’re a great selling point for nostalgia.

The Highway 18 has its own YouTube channel, but I thought the best video for showing off what the place looks like these days was Urbex’s crawl around the grounds posted just a couple of weeks ago, so that’s what I embedded above.

This night, I had my third viewing of Cars 3, a movie that makes me feel old. Then again, driving over 20,000 miles in six months would also make me feel old.

Miles Today / Total:  74 / 22093 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Cars 3 / 87

Nearby Restaurant: I was happy to get to Jefferson in time for an early lunch at the Brickhaus Cafe. First of all, there’s coffee, and that’s very important. I also enjoyed a hummus plate before getting full on an apple walnut salad. For all my talk about eating healthy, every now and then I actually do it.

Where I Virtually Stayed: The review of the few hotels in Jefferson were a little scary, so I drove just a little farther to the Holiday Inn Express in Fort Atkinson. The room had all the standard niceties, but it’s the HIE breakfast that really stands out to me. I love the pancake machines that HIEs have. The cinnamon rolls are great, but I remember when they were absolutely irresistible. Have they changed, or have I?

Only in Jefferson: Actually down in nearby Fort Atkinson, you’ll find the National Dairy Shrine Museum, part of the Hoard Historical Museum. It’s a great place to discover and honor “the rich heritage of the dairy industry.” For a feel for what it’s like, you should check out the Roadside America report, especially what was in the displayed parachute package.

Next stop: Sky-Vu Drive-In, Monroe WI.

It’s Day 170 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It took an hour of driving two-lane highways through Wisconsin hills and small towns to get from Chilton to the Big Sky Twin Drive-In Theatres in Wisconsin Dells.

According to a 2008 article in the Wisconsin Dells Events, the Big Sky began its life as the single-screen Winnebago Drive-In in 1953. “Owned by Don Deakin, the theater screened a newsreel, two cartoons and the feature film ‘Raiders of the Seven Seas,’ and gave patrons a souvenir ashtray,” wrote the Events.

Don LeGros and his family bought the place in 1980. “When we took it on, it was mostly showing motorcycle pictures and now we’ve brought it up as a family destination,” LeGros said. About that time, the drive-in’s name changed to the Dells. LeGros changed the name again in 1993 to the Big Sky and added a second screen a year later.

It’s great that we get so many opportunities for aerial views of drive-ins these days. Thanks to drones and YouTube, there are many overhead portraits of these great old places. The video I embedded above was posted last year by Ricky7RC.

The Big Sky’s marquee promises that it’s the home of the Mamaburger, made famous by Dorothy “Ma” LeGros. It’s great to be able to rely on dinner at the drive-in.

My choices for the early shows were Wonder Woman, which I’ve seen five times so far, or my second viewing of Cars 3. To be, the best thing about Cars 3 is that it pretends that Cars 2 simply never happened.

Miles Today / Total:  49 / 22019 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Cars 3 / 86

Nearby Restaurant: I don’t have many days left in Wisconsin, so I had to search out a good cheese restaurant. Macs Macaroni and Cheese Shop definitely fits that description. They serve great mac and cheese in a skillet, and you get to choose what else you want in there. Hot dogs? Bacon? BBQ sauce? Taco fixin’s? Whatever it is, there will be plenty of cheese with it, and be sure to save room for cheesecake for dessert.

Where I Virtually Stayed: There are so many tourists filling Wisconsin Dells that it rates a Hilton Garden Inn. I feel a little spoiled to wonder whether I should mention the refrigerator, microwave, and coffee maker in my room. Should we all consider them standard like a TV? Anyway, this HGI was as clean and nice as most other HGIs, and I was really happy that it was so close by.

Only in Wisconsin Dells: In this classically kitschy tourist town, there are any number of tourist traps, of which a great example is the upside-down White House at Top Secret. Recent reviews on TripAdvisor include “Worst attraction ever” and “I don’t know why this place exists”, but the folks at Roadside America seem to have had a great time there. Their guide told them, “We’re part of an archaeological dig team sponsored by the government. We just happened to run across an upside down White House in Wisconsin Dells. We have no idea why.” Fun, right?

Next stop: Highway 18 Outdoor Theatre, Jefferson WI.

It’s Day 167 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. I back down Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula, circled Green Bay, and continued southwest to the Field of Scenes in Freedom WI. The drive took less than two hours.

Tim and Brenda VandeWettering built the Field of Scenes from the ground up, surrounded by farmland, in 2003. The drive-in switched to digital projection in 2014 and added a second screen just last year. According to the Field of Scenes About Us page, their pictured but unnamed(!) children are taking over operations beginning this summer. (Don’t worry, a story last year in the Appleton Post-Crescent identified them as Taylor VandeWettering and his sister Brittni LeNoble.)

I included a 2013 report from WLUK, Green Bay’s News Leader, which had the questionable idea of doing a live morning-show remote of this drive-in theater. (A recorded segment from the night before would have looked much better!) Owner Tim was game, hauling out a wide sampling of concession stand treats, as you can see in the YouTube video above.

Mini-golf returned this summer, and there are a couple of hoops for patrons who bring their own basketballs. Or you can kill time before the movie the way I did, at the adjacent Fieldhouse Sports Bar.

Cars 3 is a perfect, family-friendly film to show at a drive-in. The original Cars, which features a drive-in at the end, was the last movie I saw at the Cinderella Twin, which was the closest drive-in to Carload World Headquarters in Denver. I wonder how many times I’ll be seeing it again over the next couple of weeks.

Miles Today / Total:  93 / 21785 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Cars 3 / 83

Nearby Restaurant: I took advantage of the Friday night fish fry and grand buffet at the Colonial House Supper Club. There were frog legs (yes, I know, technically not a fish) and perch and crab-stuffed mushrooms and so much more. I even ate some vegetables first so I could feel self-righteously healthy as I plowed through all the meats.

Where I Virtually Stayed: As Kris Kristofferson almost put it, Freedom’s just another word for nowhere left to stay. With no hotels in town, I drove nine miles to Kimberly for my first Hilton Garden Inn in a while. The price was particularly nice for an HGI, the amenities were their typically comfortable standard, and breakfast was free for me as a Hilton Gold member. Woohoo!

Only in Freedom: Just eight miles south of the Field of Scenes, you’ll find the authentic Dutch Little Chute Windmill. Authentic as in, it was built in the Netherlands from an 1850s design, then disassembled and shipped to its new home in Little Chute WI. A local nonprofit operates the windmill “as a tribute to Midwest’s Dutch heritage”.

Next stop: Chilton Twilight Drive-In Theater, Chilton WI.