photo by Brent Moore from the Carload Flickr pool

It’s Day 82 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It took just about an hour for me to drive from the Sparta Drive-In in Sparta to the Moonlite Drive-In in Woodbury TN.

The Moonlite is one of the newest drive-ins in Tennessee, built from scratch in 2005. The Murfreesboro Post had an excellent long article in 2013 that was all about how the Moonlite came to be.

According to the Post, Jimmy Higgins, then 62 years old, was inspired to open the drive-in after going to the Sparta with his wife. “We came home, and I started looking around at other drive-ins,” he said. “We drew our blueprint on a napkin and that’s how we built it, with no specs or nothing.” He erected the two screens (70- and 60-feet wide) with just the help of his sons to save expenses, and hired a couple of local carpenters to build the concession stand.

The Moonlite’s web page says it’ll be ready to open for the season next Friday. So this was another Thuirsday night of looking for something interesting on the hotel TV.

Miles Today / Total:  43 / 9733 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 43

Nearby Restaurant: It’s not a fancy place, but DJ’s Pizza & Steak House will serve you some very fine, you know, pizza and steak. It had been long enough since I’d had a good pizza with a homemade crust that I was glad that I stopped at DJ’s.

Where I Virtually Stayed: They say that if you’re staying in Woodbury, you’ve got to stay at the Cannon Inn. It’s a charming little place, but big enough to get its name and logo on those mini shampoo bottles in the bathroom. The Cannon Inn also just happens to be directly across the highway from the Moonlite.

Only in Woodbury: The town, incorporated in 1838, was named for Levi Woodbury, who was US Treasury Secretary at the time. Woodbury later became a US Senator (from New Hampshire) and an associate US Supreme Court justice, becoming one of three Senators to have also served in both of the other branches of government. Woodbury was also the first Supreme Court justice to have had attended law school.

Next Stop: Stardust Drive In Theatre, Watertown TN.