July 16: Field of Dreams Drive-In, Liberty Center OH

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It’s Day 197 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. I paid for my last-minute detour to Michigan’s upper peninsula, driving six and a half hours from Manistique to a drive-in that’s only open on weekends, the Field of Dreams Drive-In northeast of Liberty Center OH.

Just last month, The Toledo Blade ran a great, long article about the Field of Dreams and its owners, Rod and Donna Saunders. They had lamented the closing of the Star Auto Theater of Wauseon OH, where Rod grew up. The Star shut down in 1999, and the Saunders were reminded of its passing whenever they drove by and saw its abandoned screen.

“Finally, after a couple of years of hearing her say that, I said somebody ought to open one,” Rod said.

After researching some other sites, they settled on the most logical – the backyard of their home. It required plowing down acres of cornfields, so it was natural to name it the Field of Dreams after the 1989 Kevin Costner movie.

This place is really remote, so it doesn’t have to worry with a lot of light pollution. As the Blade put it, “The theater has been known to fool more than one GPS or cell phone, and — when corn’s about ready to be harvested — it’s easy to drive by the site without knowing it.”

The Saunders added a second Field of Dreams Drive-In in Tiffin OH, about 70 miles away, in 2011 after learning that its previous owner was about to shut it down. I’ve got more drive-ins in Michigan and Indiana left to visit, but I should get back to the Tiffin in early August.

Thank goodness the Field of Dreams has two screens, giving me a chance to dodge Despicable Me 3 this night. War for the Planet of the Apes was the early movie on Screen 2, and it makes a good drive-in movie, but I bet I’d have enjoyed it more if I’d seen the movies that led up to it.

Miles Today / Total:  420 / 25305 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: War for the Planet of the Apes / 113

Nearby Restaurant: This was my first exposure to Pisanello’s Pizza, a local chain centered around Toledo. After the decadent food I’d had the previous couple of days, I grounded myself with a large Italian salad. Then I smelled the pizza, and compromised on a small pizza sub sandwich. That way, I had my pepperoni and lettuce too.

Where I Virtually Stayed: There’s no place to stay in Liberty Center. The closest hotels to the drive-ins are in Napoleon, and the Comfort Inn there took care of me for the night. My room had the full range of amenities, breakfast was solid Comfort Inn quality with a waffle maker, and the location was quiet away from the highway. Just what I needed after a couple of days of hard driving.

Only in Liberty Center: Just next door in Napoleon OH, the Campbell’s Soup plant has a water tower decorated like a Campbell’s Soup can, and a grounded stationary 20-foot tower painted to look just like a huge can of Campbell’s tomato soup. That’s it!

Next stop: Capri Drive-In Theater, Coldwater MI.

July 15: Manistique Drive-In, Manistique MI

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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.

July 14: Danny Boy’s Drive In Movie Theater, Ionia MI

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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.