It’s Day 218 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It took less than an hour to drive from the South Drive-in Theater on the south side (of course!) of Columbus OH to the Skyview Drive-In Theatre just east of Lancaster OH.

The Lancaster Eagle-Gazette had a great article about the Skyview just this May. It was built in 1948 by Carlos Crum, who ran it until 1994, when he sold it to Walt Effinger. Starting in junior high school as a projectionist, Effinger had worked at the Skyview on and off for about 30 years. He still owns and runs the place today.

As seen on the back of the main screen, this drive-in opened as the Skyview Cruise-In. By 1952, industry lists had switched to calling it the Skyview Drive-In instead, although newspaper ads kept the Cruise-In name until 1970.

One one hand, Effinger is old-fashioned enough to not only keep the in-car speakers but repair them as needed himself. (FM radio sound is also available.) On the other hand, the Skyview was the first drive-in in Ohio to convert to digital projection in 2013. “Everyone knows eventually that you’ll be digital or you’ll close your doors,” he told the Delco Times that year.

“While the picture that appears on Skyview’s original 80-foot screen is upgraded, the rest of the grounds remain intact and similar to how they appeared on opening day,” the Eagle-Gazette wrote. “The decor and food concession still embody the time.”

And Effinger stressed that the Skyview is open rain or shine. “The snow don’t bother us,” he said. “The rain don’t bother us. We’ll have people on Facebook asking if we’re open. As long as I have electric, I’ll be running the movies.”

There was a note on the Skyview web site that this was the “(l)ast week for this movie,” but that did little to blunt the impact of my fifth viewing of The Emoji Movie. The Guardian wrote, “The Emoji Movie could in theory have been witty and sophisticated, … juxtaposing its apparently dumbed-down world with a smart script. But no. This is just a boilerplate animation, zestless, pointless.” So it’s not just me.

Miles Today / Total:  33 / 26715 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: The Emoji Movie / 133

Nearby Restaurant: With an eye towards historic sites, I ate lunch at the Cherry Street Pub. The bar, circa 1910, came from the town’s Last Chance Saloon. The building is 100 years old and feels it. The cuisine is really good bar food. I enjoyed the signature pecan chicken and waffles, complete with honey pecan butter. Topped that off with a Cherry Street Float made with Jack Daniels ice cream. Great stuff!

Where I Virtually Stayed: Another city with enough population meant another Hampton Inn this night. The one in Lancaster had cookies to greet me in the evening, the standard nice Hampton breakfast, and a comfortable room with a mini-fridge (though no microwave) in between. Another safe choice.

Only in Lancaster: Lancaster is home to the Ohio Glass Museum. In 2003, the Ohio legislature designated Lancaster as the “Pressed Glass Capital of Ohio”, and the museum was built soon after. There are theme collections on display, a glass-blowing demo, and every year it collects registrations for the National Marbles Tournament.

Next stop: Springmill Twin Drive In, Mansfield OH.

Photo by Keith via Cinema Treasures

It’s Day 217 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. I left Indiana behind, driving two and a half hours from Versailles IN to the South Drive-in Theater in Columbus OH.

According to the South’s history page, it opened in 1950. The South was the second drive-in built by Leo Yassenoff in Columbus. In 1971, Skip Yassenoff bought the drive-in from his elderly cousin and continues to operate it today.

One of Skip’s first projects was replacing the South’s original “telephone tower” screen with a modern steel screen. As luck would have it, a year later a tornado took down this new screen. The tornado rolled through the drive-in on a Wednesday night in late May just before dark. There were a number of patrons in the drive-in at the time who rode out the tornado. The cashier in the box office could see the tornado coming and just sat there, finally diving face first into a nearby drainage ditch.

Its history page also says that the South added a second screen in 1987, but the 1984 International Motion Picture Almanac already listed the South with two screens. So let’s just agree that it happened in the mid-80s.

In a 2011 entry in Marshall McPeak’s blog, he interviewed Skip, who at that point owned a total of seven other outdoor theaters. At the time of the post, he was still using two film projectors and in-car speakers like the old days, although radio sound was also available. “Skip says the theater’s success is all about location, convenience and price,” McPeek wrote. “He emphatically points out that nostalgia plays only a minuscule role in bringing in clientele.”

The South has also been the site of a large flea market on weekends since the mid 1970s. Based on their web site and YouTube channel, someone there is spending more time promoting the daytime flea market than the nighttime movies. It must be doing really well.

Once again, the twin screens saved me this night. One side had The Emoji Movie, but the other had Atomic Blonde, which I watched for the second time. Not that bad at all!

Miles Today / Total:  152 / 26682 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Atomic Blonde / 132

Nearby Restaurant: With a name like that, I just had to seek out Dirty Frank’s Hot Dog Palace in downtown Columbus. The basic chili dog is just $3, but you need to try much more than the basics here. I had Slappy Pappy’s Super Sloppy dog with bacon, cheese,
sour cream, and topped off with french fries, for just $3.50. Added an order of fried leeks to that, and it still felt like a bargain.

Where I Virtually Stayed: I always feel safe choosing a Hampton Inn, and this one down by the Scioto Downs race track seemed newer than most. My room had a mini fridge, which I consider much more important than a microwave, and the wifi was solid. Breakfast was the great free Hampton standard. And the best part was that the hotel was attached to the track, although I’ve never figured out the right way to bet on harness races.

Only in Columbus: Every summer, the Ohio State Fair sets up in Columbus, and every year it shows off some of the finest butter sculptures you’ll ever see. In 2017, a team of artists worked 500 hours and used 2,000 pounds of butter to create the butter cow (an annual fixture since 1903) and a huge bottle of chocolate milk, the official beverage of the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

Next stop: Skyview Drive-In Theatre, Lancaster OH.