It’s Day 198 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. I was glad to be done with crazy long drives for a while. After 12 hours’ worth over the previous two days, the hour and a half it took to go from Liberty Center OH to the Capri Drive-In Theater in Coldwater MI felt like nothing.

The Capri was built by John and Mary Magocs and opened in August 1964. Back then it was a single screen serving up to 1000 cars. As the Capri’s story page relates, the snack bar at the time was leased to Auto City Candy Company of Detroit. Operating a Drive-In for the Magocs was a family affair. John and Mary, John Jr. and Tom, spent many a night making sure the show went off each night.

In 1977, the operation of the Capri Drive-In was leased to William Clarke of Coldwater while the Magocs resided in Florida. In 1980, Tom and John Jr. resumed operation of the theatre. One of their first decisions was to install AM radio transmission of the movie sound. All but 5 rows of speakers were removed.

In 1986, the Capri became a twin. Screen Two was added on the back side of theatre. Screen One’s car capacity was decreased to 550 cars, with Screen Two parking 300 more.

In 2016, USA Today readers voted the Capri the second-best drive-in in the US, behind only the 99W of Newburg OR. TripAdvisor reviewers give it an average of 4.5 on a scale of 5, naming it the best Thing To Do in Coldwater. It really is a very nice place to watch a drive-in movie.

For today’s video, I’ve embedded Pure Michigan’s 50th anniversary show, which is both a tribute to the end of the film era at the Capri and what feels like a year-end blooper reel. For another neat Capri video, check out the historic footage of the construction of the place; that’s also available on YouTube. It includes some especially interesting aerial shots, which makes sense considering that whole airport connection.

Thank goodness the Capri has two screens, giving me a chance to dodge Despicable Me 3 once again. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a better movie, especially if you grew up reading comic books the way I did.

Miles Today / Total:  84 / 25389 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Spider-Man: Homecoming / 114

Nearby Restaurant: The closest restaurant to this drive-in / airport combination is the Prop Blast Cafe, but I went into town for something more like the drive-in than the airport. Short’s Rootbeer Stand has the classic drive-in restaurant look with lots of neon, primary colors and classic music. And root beer and hot dogs. Timeless!

Where I Virtually Stayed: The Capri offers lodging packages, something every drive-in should consider. The package that caught my eye was for my favorite chain, the Hampton Inn. Everything was solid Hampton, including all the amenities in my room, the very nice breakfast buffet, and an On the Run breakfast bag at checkout. It makes good snacking on the road.

Only in Coldwater: The Tibbits Opera House is the second-oldest theater in Michigan. Barton S. Tibbits, mayor of Coldwater at the time, built it in 1882. It was altered to be more movie-friendly in 1934, but when the movie business faded, the Tibbits was boarded up and scheduled to be razed by the end of the 1950s. The Tibbits Opera Foundation and Arts Council was founded in 1963 and now operates the facility year-round as a community center for the arts.

Next stop: Auburn Garrett Drive In Theatre, Garrett IN.

It’s Day 196 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. For a very special occasion, I drove five hours from Ionia in the middle of Michigan’s mitten all the way up I-75 to the Upper Peninsula and on to the drive-in in Manistique. It’s the Brigadoon of drive-ins, rarely available, but it was open Saturday night.

What’s now referred to as the Manistique Drive-In (there’s no name on the sign) started its life as the US-2 in 1953. The single-screen theater was owned by J.L. LeDuc, who owned the indoor theaters in town, and planned to close one of them in the summer when the US-2 was open. Within a few years, the Delft Theater chain took over operations, and the theater was listed as the Highway 2. At some point, that name evolved further, to the Cinema Two, not because there a second screen, but because the indoor theater in town was called Cinema One.

Whatever it was called, the drive-in dropped off the International Motion Picture Almanac lists in the mid 1970s. Cinema Treasures says the Cinema Two closed in 2001.

Fast forward to July 2016. Even though the Cinema Two had sat idle for over a decade, the Tourism Action Committee of the Schoolcraft County Economic Development Corporation opened it for a free, one-time showing of Back to the Future. Response was overwhelming, with 343 vehicles packing the lot. That led to Eric Sherbinow launching a GoFundMe campaign to raise $2500 for a “professional projector” to improve the experience. That goal was quickly met, and two more free screenings were held in September and October.

The system the Manistique drive-in used reminds me of Connecticut’s Southington Drive-In. There, the town owns the drive-in and local civic organizations take turns selling concessions and reaping the profits.

So this past week, I’ve been zigzagging around Michigan, and I noticed a note in Wednesday’s Escanaba Daily Press. One night only, the “Manistique Drive-Inn theater” would be showing the classic Jurassic Park and and the cheap-to-rent Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet. Concessions benefit St. Francis de Sales School in Manistique. What serendipity! I had to change my plans and drive up for this one.

Part of the original Cinema Two sign is still there on US Highway 2, across from the airport. I don’t care. I’m happy to be a part of the slow return of a drive-in to its community. Check out the YouTube video embedded above to see what it’s like.

Miles Today / Total:  318 / 24885 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Jurassic Park / 112

Nearby Restaurant: It was time to visit another vintage drive-in, but Clyde’s Drive-In is a restaurant. I bellied up to the bar for a Big C burger, 3/4 pound of meat on a bun, with a basket of fries. With a malt on the side, I knew I wouldn’t need a full dinner at the concession stand that night.

Where I Virtually Stayed: What the heck! Jankowski’s Holiday Motel is right next door to the drive-in, and it turned out okay. It’s just a mom and pop motel with decent rooms at a really good price. My room had the full set of amenities, including fridge and solid wifi, and banana bread with coffee at breakfast.

Only in Manistique: Ripley’s Believe It or Not featured the Siphon Bridge over the Manistique River here, because it was lower than the water it crossed. It was actually over a large flume to the local paper mill, and the concrete bridge used the rushing water and atmospheric pressure to help support it. The bridge is still there, but the flume isn’t, so now it’s just a bridge over a river.

Next stop: Field of Dreams Drive-In, Liberty Center OH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEUZdGvge10

It’s Day 195 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It took less than an hour and a half to drive from Flint MI to the Danny Boy’s Drive In Movie Theater just south of Ionia MI.

Dan Lower and his wife, Gail, decided to invest in a drive-in near the site of a closed drive-in in his home town on the advice of their son who did an internet search that showed 90,000 Michigan residents search for “drive-in movie” every month. The result, which opened in 2013, is a modern single-screen theater.

Lower told the Ionia Sentinel-Standard that his vision for the drive-in is “Chuck E. Cheese meets the movies.” Sure enough, there’s a dancing, big-headed Danny Boy mascot that leads kids in getting their wiggles out before night falls and the show begins.

“If you are going (specifically) for the movie, don’t go to a drive-in,” he advised. “It’s really for kids, and a whole other demographic comes to the drive in.”

From the earliest days of Carload, a recurring question I’d get was, “What do I need to build a drive-in?” My short answer was that you mainly need a local champion, someone politically connected to guide the project through whatever level of NIMBY opposition any drive-in project is bound to face. Dan Lower has a much better, and longer, answer on his blog How To Build A Drive-In Movie Theater. His first focus was finding a location that’s economically viable. “I have a ‘1 McDonald’s rule’,” he writes. “If there is only 1 McDonald’s in your town / county / area….there is probably only room for 1 Drive In Theater in the area.” If you’re interested in starting your own, or just to read between the lines about the birth of Danny Boy’s, you should really go read the whole thing.

Once again (from my perspective), Despicable Me 3 was the early show. I might have dozed off, because I knew I needed to get up early the next morning. I read just this week that a drive-in which only opened two nights last year was going to have another show, and I was in range if I was willing to make a longer drive than I’d planned.

Miles Today / Total:  84 / 24567 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Despicable Me 3 / 111

Nearby Restaurant: I like good eats, and I like cheap eats, and it’s great when those two come together. At the Lamplight Grill for dinner after hanging around with carnival food at the fair all day (see below), what I really needed was just the soup and salad bar. All in a setting that has the warm, comforting look of the inside of the Cheers bar. Stomach settled, I was ready for Danny Boy’s.

Where I Virtually Stayed: With a small town such as Ionia, I’m grateful to find a Super 8. This one is adjacent to a truck stop, so I always knew where I could get sundries or a late-night snack. My room had the full set of amenities, the free wifi was solid, and I could grab some truck stop biscuits and gravy to supplement the usual Super 8 continental breakfast.

Only in Ionia: For over a century, every mid to late July, Ionia hosts what Wikipedia says could be the world’s largest free-admission fair. This year, the Ionia Free Fair started on July 13, a day before I arrived. Lucky me! I made it in time for the Governor’s Luncheon, then the poultry and waterfowl show. And all the midway rides made me glad for a quiet evening at the drive-in.

Next stop: Manistique Drive-In, Manistique MI.