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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RzH4r4wRm4

It’s Day 193 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It was nothing compared to some of the western legs of my odyssey, but this day’s drive was probably the longest I’ll have all month. Almost four hours after I left little Honor MI, I rolled up at the Hi Way Drive-In Theatre, a few miles west of Carsonville MI.

The Hi Way is the oldest active drive-in theater in Michigan. C. H. “Torchy” Clements opened the Hi Way in 1948 and owned it for the next 20 years. Doug Davis was the manager and projectionist. In 1968, Clements sold the drive-in to Stanley Fetting, who ran it with his son. They solid the Hi Way in 1997 to Steve Kurzinsky.

This place is a bit in the middle of nowhere, tucked between Highway M-46 and a bend in the Black River, surrounded by miles of farmland. The lot has the standard old drive-in ramps, all on a grassy field. There are speaker poles for 360 vehicles, but with FM radio sound, they might be able to find room for a few more. Without any meaningful civilization within a couple of miles, the Hi Way benefits from a lack of light pollution.

If your computer (or phone, or however you’re reading this) can play an old Windows Media Video format file, your first stop should be the Hi Way’s history page, which has a 20-minute slice of life from 1996, during Fetting’s tenure. That provides great background for a 2014 look at the Kurzinsky administration. Ben La Londe created one of the best little documentaries about a single drive-in, and I was able to embed it as a YouTube video above. Watch both to see the evolution of the projection system and the projectionist.

There’s yet another little WMV video from 2003 available at WaterWinterWonderland.com, which also has a note from Torchy’s daughter Patricia. “I was four years old when the drive in opened and spent a good part of my life there,” she wrote. “Some of that time was watching movies and fireworks, and some was pulling weeds from the flower beds in front, checking the speakers, and when I was older, manning the ticket booth. I loved it.”

I had a pretty good time myself, even though it was my eighth time through Despicable Me 3. I could crane my head out of the window and look out at the Milky Way.

Miles Today / Total:  215 / 24398 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Despicable Me 3 / 109

Nearby Restaurant: Another small town, another great little diner where they serve breakfast till 2 in the afternoon. Actually, the Triple J Cafe in Carsonville stays open till 3, but you get the idea. I enjoyed the sausage-stuffed French toast with a side of grits and enough coffee to make me glad I made the drive to get here.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Another small town, another mom and pop motel. In this case, the closest town with a motel was Sandusky, and the motel was DeMott’s Westpark Inn. There’s a restaurant and bar on the property, so that was nice. My room had a refridgerator and wifi, and there was actually a decent continental breakfast in the morning. All at a really good price!

Only in Carsonville: Less than 10 miles away at the end of Sanilac Road, the local name for Highway M-46 that leads from the Hi Way to Carsonville and beyond, you’ll find the Port Sanilac Lighthouse. The 59-foot tower and attached two-story house were built in 1886. The US government decommissioned the lighthouse and sold it to Carl Rosenfield for $4000 in 1928. Rosenfield’s grandson owns the place now, and apparently the lighthouse still works.

Next stop: US 23 Drive-in Theater, Flint MI.